Sugar output from Brazil's top producing region could jump to a record 43.1 million metric tonnes in the 2024/25 season despite lower supplies of the cane crop, sugar and ethanol consultancy Datagro said.
Sugar output from Brazil's main centre-south region is likely to go up because mills plan to prioritise the production of the more profitable sweetener over ethanol, Datagro director Guilherme Nastari told Reuters.
Shortfall In Supplies
Higher sugar output would help the world's biggest producer to meet the shortfall in supplies from the other top two producers - India and Thailand. And that could cap gains in global sugar prices SBc1.
India's sugar output is set to lag consumption for the first time in seven years, and lower plantings may even force the world's No.2 producer to import in the following year.
Thailand is expected to produce 8-8.5 million metric tonnes of sugar in the 2023-24 production year, a drop of about 25% from the previous season.
Sugarcane crushing in Brazil's centre-south region could fall to 620 million metric tonnes in the 2024-25 (April-March) season, down from an estimated record 649.25 million metric tonnes in 2023-24, Nastari said on the sidelines of a sugar conference.
But mills are expected to divert more cane for sugar than ethanol, helping mills churn out a record 43.1 million metric tonnes of sugar in 2024-25, he said.
Sugar Output
Sugar output from Brazil's centre-south region is expected at an all-time high of 42.23 million metric tonnes in 2023-24.
Despite a recent correction in sugar prices, the sweetener still fetches better returns than ethanol, and that is why Datagro expects that 52.4% of the 2024-25 cane harvest would go for sugar, up from 49% in 2023-24.
As a result, the output of ethanol from cane could fall to 31 billion litres in 2024-25 against 32.96 billion litres this year, Nastari said.
But corn ethanol production could rise to 7 billion litres in 2024-25 against this year's 5.9 billion litres, he said.
