Ethanol production in Brazil's key Center-South region in the second half of June is expected at nearly 1.84 billion liters, down 6% on the year, but up 22% from the first half of June, an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts showed Tuesday.
Center-South is the largest sugarcane and sugar producing region in the world. Industry association UNICA is expected to release its official production figures for the region on Wednesday.
Drier weather over H2 June favored the sugarcane harvesting. According to the analysts' estimates, an average of nearly 0.2 days of crushing were lost to rains in H2 June, compared with roughly 1.4 days in H1 June.
To produce ethanol, mills used 49.6% of the 46.7 million mt of the cane crushed in H2 June, the survey showed. That compared with 53.01% of the 48.23 million mt of cane crushed over the same period last year.
Hydrous is expected to have accounted for 56%, or 1.03 billion liters, down 7% on year, while the balance was anhydrous, or 804.4 million liters, down 4% year on year.
The balance of the cane, or 50.4%, was expected to have been used to produce 3 million mt of sugar, up 7% on the year and up 26% from H1 June.
Wider analyst expectations for the cane crush ranged from 42 million mt to 49.3 million mt. The consensus for cane's total recoverable sugar, or ATR, was 133.52 kg/mt in H2 June, with a wider range of 132-135 kg/mt. That compared with 129.79 kg/mt a year ago and 128.41 kg/mt in H1 June.
Considering the average poll results for crushing, the accumulated volume in the first three months of the season (April-June) is expected to have reached 197.9 million mt, down 8% on the year, the survey showed.
Even though the cumulative cane crush was down on the year, cumulative sugar production was expected to be 0.5% higher than same period last year at 11.07 million mt. That's a result of a higher proportion of the cane crushed directed to sugar production this season.
Kingsman, the agricultural analysis unit of S&P Global Platts, forecast the H2 June cane crush at 47.4 million mt.
Sugar production is expected at 3.077 million mt, while ATR is expected to have reached 133.6 kg/mt of cane, according to senior sugar analyst Claudiu Covrig.
In Parana, the fifth largest state producer in Center-South, the amount of sugarcane crushed in H2 June was 3.1 million mt, down 7.2% from a year ago but up from 1.2 million mt two weeks earlier, data from industry association Alcopar showed.
The percentage of the total cane crushed that was directed to ethanol production was 38.03%, compared with 42.26% during the same period last year.
Ethanol production totaled 88.8 million liters, down 18% on the year, but up from just 39 million liters in H1 June.
Of that total, hydrous amounted to 43.3 million liters, while the balance was anhydrous.
The balance of the cane was used to produce 239,337 mt of sugar, down 1.8% on the year but up 149% from the first half of June.
