Cuban raw sugar production topped 2.3 million tonnes this week with little chance an additional 100,000 tonnes can be churned out before the last mill closes later this month, local analysts said on Thursday.
"Production passed the 2.3 million tonne mark when the month began," a source close to the Sugar Ministry said.
Reuters estimated output at 2.32 million tonnes May 1, based on official media and provincial source reports.
The world's fourth-largest sugar exporting country sells abroad all but 700,000 tonnes of the crop.
More than half of 80 mills have already closed, according to official media reports, including most of the industry's larger ones.
May milling is costly and produces little, as hot and humid weather drops yields and hampers harvesting.
Cuba shuttered 71 of 156 mills and relegated 60 percent of sugar lands to other uses in a 2002 restructuring that resulted in a 2002/2003 crop of 2.2 million tonnes, the lowest in 70 years.
Sugar Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro said when the harvest began in December that it would weigh in at 2.6 million tonnes by May, marking the start of a new, more efficient era for the industry.
But the harvest has been plagued by lower-than-expected yields, milling problems, agricultural and transportation equipment breakdowns and drought in the eastern part of the country.
Just four of 13 sugar-producing provinces have met their plans to date, Cuba's top sugar reporter, Juan Varela Perez, said on Wednesday.
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