Brazil's new sugar season off to a slow start
- According to a report by industry group Unica released on Thursday, sugar and ethanol plants processed 1.67 million tonnes of cane in the first two weeks of the month versus 2.95 million tonnes a year earlier.
- Unica said 21 mills were crushing cane in the period compared to 31 at this time last year. It projects that 54 plants would be operational by the end of the month versus 87 last year.
Mills in Brazil's centre-south area, the world's largest sugar producing region, made a slow start to the 2021/22 season, crushing 43% less cane in the first half of March than last year's volume in the period as dry weather stunted cane growth.
According to a report by industry group Unica released on Thursday, sugar and ethanol plants processed 1.67 million tonnes of cane in the first two weeks of the month versus 2.95 million tonnes a year earlier.
Unica said 21 mills were crushing cane in the period compared to 31 at this time last year. It projects that 54 plants would be operational by the end of the month versus 87 last year.
The new sugar season officially starts in April, but usually plants kick-off cane processing around March if they have fields ready. This year, however, cane development has been impacted by dryer-than-normal weather in central Brazil.
Sugar production in the first half of March, however, was 26% higher than a year ago at 51,000 tonnes. That is because the plants allocated more cane to sugar than to ethanol production in the period compared to last year. They earmarked 31% of cane to sugar production versus only 14% at this time in 2020.
Ethanol production fell 17% to 200 million liters. Unica expects the lockdowns adopted by several cities in the country to stop the spread of coronavirus would negatively impact demand for the fuel in coming weeks.