Sao Paulo: Sugarcane crushing in Brazil’s center-south region is lower than expected in the second half of April compared to the preceding year, said Industry group Unica, reports Reuters.
Unica has stated that the cane crushing has been reported 12.5% in the second half of April which has also resulted in lower sugar output as the rains restricted the harvesting.
Bad weather resulted in mills losing 10 days of harvesting operations in the first month of the new cycle, said Unica.
The analysts estimated the crushing of 25.59 million in late April but the actual crushing was 21 million tonnes. Sugar output was up 5.9% to 989,000 tonnes but below the expectations of the 1.24 million forecast.
The El Nino phenomenon will be affecting harvesting and sugar production this year, it said.
Ethanol production in late April was also down 11.2% to 978 million litres compared to the previous season as mills are allocating more cane to sugar production due to rising sugar prices in the global market.
