Brazil’s center-south 2015/16 sugar output should reach 29.8 million tonnes versus an earlier projection of 32.6 million tonnes, local analyst Archer Consulting said on Tuesday. The consultancy said recoverable sugar levels (ATR) in the current cane crop will be smaller than seen last year due to above-average rains, reducing industrial yields for sugar production.
Archer sees center-south ethanol production at 27.5 billion liters compared with 26.6 billion previously, as mills allocate more cane to the biofuel in response to strong local demand. “We kept unchanged the volume of cane to be crushed from the previous estimate, but with a significant change in the amount of ATR per tonne of cane due to lower yields,” Archer’s director, Arnaldo Correa, said.
The consultancy projects a total volume of 581 million tonnes of cane to be processed during the crop, which usually runs from April to December. Cane industry group Unica’s last by-weekly report showed weak processing numbers for the first half of July due to rains. The weather has since dried up in most producing areas, which should boost the next round of data to be released this week. Unica’s technical director, Antonio de Padua Rodrigues, has already warned the firm could revise sugar production downward in its next projection expected for September.
