Sugar output from Brazil's new 2012/13 center-south cane crop was forecast at 33.88 million tonnes, up 9 percent from 31.2 million tonnes in the current crop, crop analysts Datagro said on Thursday in their first estimate of the upcoming harvest.
Datagro President Plinio Nastari said Brazil's main growing region will produce 518.3 million tonnes of cane this coming April-March season, up from the 493 million tonnes crushed from this season's drought-hit center-south crop. Drought and falling yields caused the current center-south cane crop in the world's largest sugar producer to suffer the first drop in output in 11 years.
Smaller output from the world's main supplier of sugar has helped support futures prices, despite expectations of bigger harvests of beet and cane from other smaller Northern Hemisphere producers of the sweetener. New York ICE sugar futures have risen almost 10 percent since Monday.
Nastari said that drought during the period for planting of new cane that was supposed to be ready for harvesting in the coming crop would be delayed until the end of this year or until even next season, as plants are not mature enough to harvest. "To be ready to cut in November, December and January, we will be approaching the end of the crop. So, a good part of the cane will only be harvested in 2013," Nastari said. He added that his estimates were perhaps optimistic for the center-south cane and sugar output as they did not take into account potential pest infestation, flowering and frosts, which were factors that hurt the last year's crop.
"This is the scenario without these factors, which we hope don't happen again," he said, adding that crushing of the new crop would likely start in the second week of April for most mills, though some would hold out until May. Nastari also said that sugar exports from the new center-south crop, which accounts for 90 percent of Brazil's cane output, would reach 23.6 million tonnes, up from the 21.69 million tonnes expected to flow abroad from the current now-finished season. Ethanol output from the current center-south crop is forecast at 21.8 billion liters (4.8 billion Imp gallons), up from the 20.6 billion liters produced this season, Nastari said.