Mills in Brazil's center-south region increased cane crushing and sugar production in the second half of September, as drier-than-normal weather allowed for a quicker harvesting pace, cane industry group Unica said on Wednesday.
The plants produced 1.79 million tonnes of sugar in the period, up 39% from the same time a year earlier. They crushed 35.08 million tonnes, 26% more, while ethanol output increased 32% to 2.18 billion liters.
Despite the large increases compared to the same period a year earlier, the market had expected more. A survey of 10 analysts run by market-information provider Platts projected the cane crush at 36.44 million tonnes and sugar production at 1.87 million tonnes.
The report said mills lost five harvesting days because of late September rains last year compared to only two and a half days lost this year. According to Eikon's Agriculture Weather Dashboard, precipitation has been below normal in the main Ribeirão Preto cane area since at least early August. It projects weather to remain dryer-than-normal through the end of October.
"Mills from Sao Paulo state were reporting that crushing season could end earlier than usual in the season 2019-20 mainly due to the dry weather that has been favouring a faster pace of the harvest", Platts said.
Unica reported that seven mills have already finished harvesting for the season, long before the usual end of field work in late November or early December. But the group said that last year at this time seven mills had also finished harvesting. The quicker harvesting might lend some pressure to sugar prices, since volumes from Brazil could arrive in the market earlier than expected.
"Our expectations for CS Brazil don't provide the bulls with much reason to wake from their lethargic state," said Claudiu Covrig, senior analyst from S&P Global Platts Analytics.
Comments
Comments are closed.