Brazil sugar output up 35% in late Dec., not much cane left
SAO PAULO, Jan 11 (Reuters) -Brazil’s Centre-Southsugar output rose35% year-on-year inthe second half of December as mills extended the crushing season under dry weather, said industry group Unica on Thursday, adding that there is not much sugarcane left now.
Mills in the main Brazilian sugar belt produced 236,000 metric tons late in December compared to 174,000 tons in the same period a year earlier (see table). Sugarcane crushing rose nearly 80% on an annual base to 4.87 million tons.
Unica said the amount of sugarcane processed in the whole of December was the largest for the month since 2015, at over 20 million tons. Unusual dry weather for this time of the year drove mills to extend operations.
Due to that, they will basically crush all the cane available in the fields.
“We had that expectation a couple of months ago that there would be cane left in the fields to be crushed in the next season, but that idea seems to have vanished after the exceptional pace of the harvest in the last third of the crop,” Unica said in a statement.
The group said that 81 mills out of the 100 that were still operating late in December will stop early in January.
Total ethanol production, including corn-based fuel, rose 62.9% to 526 million liters.
Despite the excellent processing pace, which was one factor behind sugar prices SBc1 slide late last year,some analysts believe the dry weather will hurt new crop development.
UNICA’S CROP REPORT(cane and sugar in million metric tons, ethanol in billion liters, total recoverable sugar-TRS in kg per tonne):
BRAZIL CENTRE-SOUTH – 2ND HALF DEC.(ANNUAL COMPARISON)
| 2022/23 | 2023/24 | % CHANGE | |
| CANE CRUSH | 2.70 | 4.87 | 79.87 |
| SUGAR OUTPUT | 0.174 | 0.236 | 35.63 |
| ETHANOL OUTPUT* | 0.323 | 0.526 | 62.88 |
| TRS (kg/T) | 143 | 136 | -4.36 |
| CANE TO SUGAR | 47% | 37% |
BRAZIL CENTER-SOUTH CROP CUMULATIVE DATA
| 2022/23 | 2023/24 | % CHANGE | |
| CANE CRUSH | 542 | 644 | 18.76 |
| SUGAR OUTPUT | 33.52 | 42.05 | 25.43 |
| ETHANOL OUTPUT* | 27.48 | 31.44 | 14.39 |
| TRS (kg/T) | 141 | 139 | -1.13 |
| CANE TO SUGAR | 45.9% | 49.0% |
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