Brazil's center-south region crushed 39.5 million tonnes of sugar cane in the first half of May, more than in the previous two-week period, but rain hindered progress and more will fall in coming days, cane industry association Unica said Wednesday. Brazil's main cane belt produced 2.06 million tonnes of sugar in the first half of May versus 1.81 million tonnes in late April. Output was 68 percent above the same time last year.
Ethanol production reached 1.62 billion liters versus 1.49 billion liters in the second half of April. Last year's early May output was 1.24 billion liters. The comparison with last year can be misleading since there was a lot of rain at that time in 2015 due to a strong El Nino. Unica said mills could have crushed more if it were not for the rains, since the center-south is dealing with a record cane crop estimated at around 630 million tonnes.
"The expectation is that work was also affected in the second half of May," it said in a statement. Rainy weather is expected to continue through June. According to Thomson Reuters Agricultural Dashboard the main Ribeirao Preto region in Sao Paulo state should receive 46 millimeters of rain in the first 10 days of June, while the Piracicaba region, another big producing area, should get 135 millimeters. Some market participants estimate mills will lose six to eight crushing days in the first half of June, compared to 3.5 days in late May. The sugar/ethanol production mix shows mills continue to increase cane allocation to the sweetener. They earmarked 44 percent of cane to sugar production in late May versus 37.8 percent last year, as sugar currently gives better returns than biofuel.
Comments
Comments are closed.