The 2016-17 (April-March) sugarcane crush in Center-South Brazil is expected to reach a minimum of 605 million mt and a maximum of 630 million mt, down 2% at the minimum or up 2% at the maximum from 2015-16, industry association UNICA said Wednesday.
UNICA said it expected sugar production of 33.5 million-35 million mt in 2016-17 compared with 31.22 million mt a year earlier.
Center-South Brazil is the largest sugar producer in the world.
ATR -- total recoverable sugar -- is expected to be a minimum 134 and maximum 136 kg/mt of cane this season.
UNICA also released crush figures for the first 15 days of April.
The total amount of cane crushed was 32.84 million mt, up over two and a half times on the year and a record for the period, according to UNICA.
The proportion of cane crushed going to sugar production was 10.5 percentage points higher on the year at 40.99%, with 59.01% going to ethanol production.
Sugar production was 1.43 million mt, almost fourfold higher year on year. Anhydrous ethanol output totaled 387 million liters, compared with just 88 million liters a year earlier, while hydrous output was 891 million liters, up 85% year on year. The ATR was 111.42 kg/mt compared with 104.4 kg/mt a year earlier.
Ethanol production in the 2016-17 season is seen at 27.5 billion-28.7 billion liters, compared with 28.23 billion liters last season. Of total ethanol, hydrous production is seen at 10.8 billion-11 billion liters and hydrous at 16.7 billion-17.7 billion liters.
UNICA said the record crush in H1 April was due to an unusually high number of mills operating, combined with atypically dry weather that was positive for harvesting. On April 1, there were 137 mills already in full swing and by April 15 the number of mills operating was 205. Last year by April 15 there were 165 mills operating and the weather was more normal, with periods of rain.
