The 2016-17 cane crushing season, forecast by some commentators to bring record volumes, is starting early in Brazil’s key Centre South region.
With a month to go before the official start of next season, cane mills are starting up from the seasonal down period at a rate of about three a day, data from industry group Unica signal.
The cane industry group expects 70 mills to be in operation by March 15, implying a strong start to the crushing pace for 2016-17, which Agroconsult this week forecast would see 622m tonnes of the crop processed.
This after a long tail to the 2015-16 processing period, which has witnessed an unusually large number of mills remain open during a period typically marked by a near-standstill in cane processing.
Usually, mills close for seasonal maintenance late in the calendar year, which often witnesses the onset of wetter weather in the Centre South, hampering cane harvesting.
‘Carry on crushing’
However, more than 20 mills in the region remained open in the second half of last month, allowing cane crushing volumes for the period come in at 1.1m tonnes – up from 200,000 tonnes in the second half of February last year.
“High cane availability, attractive sugar and ethanol prices and the ongoing need to generate cash have all encouraged millers to carry on crushing operations beyond the typical April-December period,” the International Sugar Organization said in a separate report on Tuesday.
Mills turned the vast majority of the cane – 87% – processed in the second half of last month into ethanol rather than sugar.
“Processing companies continue to give priority to the production of hydrous ethanol due to supply commitments, and the [financial] liquidity of the product,” said Antonio de Padua Rodrigues, the Unica technical director.
Hydrous ethanol can be readily sold in the domestic market, helping maintain cashflows, which are particularly important for the Centre South’s debt-laden mills.
Centre South mills produced 14,000 tonnes of sugar in the second half of last month, a de minimis amount in comparison with the 30.8m tonnes they have produced in all over 2015-16.
So far, they have crushed 603.9m tonnes of cane.
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