Copersucar sugar sales rise 28.5pc to 5.4mn tonnes in 2020/21 harvest

SAO PAULO: Brazil's Copersucar, the world's largest sugar merchant, said on Tuesday its sugar sales totaled 5.4 million tonnes this harvest, up from 3.7 million tonnes last harvest.

Its sugar exports were 3.4 million tonnes compared to 1.9 million tonnes in the previous harvest, Copersucar said in a statement.

With the fuel market affected by the pandemic in 2020/21, Copersucar's sales of ethanol dropped to 11.1 billion liters during the 2020/21 harvest, down from 14.2 billion liters in the previous harvest.

Of the total ethanol sold, 4.6 billion liters were sold by Copersucar directly, while sales by the US subsidiary Eco-Energy totaled 6.5 billion liters.

"As a result of the industry's production flexibility in Brazil, unlike the last two years, the 2020-21 harvest was marked by a greater shift in production to sugar at the expense of ethanol, given the general uncertainties of the pandemic on fuel consumption in the local market," the company said.

"As a result, Copersucar S.A. had a significant increase of 43% in the sale of sugar, mainly destined for the foreign market, favored by a context of reduced production in other producing countries and the consequent drop in global stocks," it said.

Copersucar said net sales were 38.7 billion reais from the 2020/21 harvest, up from 30.1 billion reais in the previous season. Consolidated net profit was 375 million reais versus 119 million reais in the previous harvest.

"The financial result is a reflection of the company's remarkable operating performance, due to the record of sugar export shipments through the Santos Terminal and ethanol operations in Brazil," the company said.