Brazil's sugar and ethanol producer Sao Martinho, one of the country's biggest sugarcane refiners by market value, said late Thursday that ethanol production in the 2013-14 harvest grew 41.4% over the previous one to 639 million liters (169 million gallons), the highest since the 2008-09 campaign.
The refiner also said production for the current season had been completed.
Output was split between 252 million liters of hydrous ethanol, up 42.5% from the previous harvest, and 387 million liters of anhydrous ethanol, an increase of 40.8%.
In Brazil, hydrous ethanol is used as a standalone biofuel into flex-fuel cars, which can run on a mixture of the sugarcane-based fuel and gasoline. Anhydrous ethanol is either mixed into gasoline or exported to key international markets such as the US.
The Pradopolis-based group, which operates three mills with combined capacity to process 17 million mt of sugarcane per year, said crushing in the current season rose by 20.9% versus the previous one to a record high of 15.592 million mt.
Brazil's center-south sugarcane harvest, the world's largest, typically runs from April do December.
Sao Martinho said it prioritized the production of sugar and anhydrous ethanol as "these products hold the best profit margins."
It diverted 48.3% of ATR, a measure of recoverable sugar content in crops, to the production of sugar and 31.8% to the manufacturing of anhydrous ethanol.
Some 52% of sugarcane crushed were used to the production of both hydrous and anhydrous ethanol, versus 43% in the previous season, Sao Martinho added.
Brazil's center-south region is expected to harvest a record 590-plus million mt sugarcane harvest in 2013-14 as farmers expand fields, replace old plants with more productive ones and weather conditions return to normal patterns, industry analysts said.
