Brazil's cane industry group Unica said on Tuesday that 27 mills were operating in the center-south region in the first half of March, compared with 50 mills at this time last year. Unica said center-south mills crushed 1.59 million tonnes of cane in the first half of March, 53 percent less than in the same period a year earlier.
Brazil's new sugar season officially starts in April, but some mills begin crushing before that if they have cane ready to be processed or if they need to make quick cash by producing ethanol for the spot market. Unica's numbers reinforce a general sense in the market that mills are likely to delay the kickoff for the new season because of a long dry spell in December and January and then late rains in March that slowed cane development.
Ethanol sales remained strong in the first half of March at 1.22 billion liters, as mills continued to sell their stocks. Sales of hydrous ethanol, the type that competes with gasoline at the pumps, rose 23 percent from last year to 824 million liters.