Mills in Brazil's key Center-South region crushed 49.693 million mt of sugarcane in the second half of July, up 4.25% from the year-ago period, according to data released by sugarcane industry association UNICA Thursday.
The period's cane crush also came in above the consensus analyst estimate of 48.04 million mt.
The most recent period's activity brought the cumulative Center-South crush since April 1 to 307.81 million mt, down 2.75% compared with the previous season.
Total recoverable sugar dropped 6.13% year on year to 141.3 kg/mt of cane, which was below analyst expectations of 141.6 kg/mt.
Sugar production fell 5.5% year on year in the first half of the month to 2.478 million mt but beat the consensus analyst estimate of 2.404 million mt.
Total ethanol production in the region in H2 July was 2.65 billion liters, of which 835 million liters was anhydrous and the remaining 1.815 billion liters hydrous. Total ethanol production jumped 0.97% year on year, according to the data. Hydrous production was above analyst estimates of 1.69 billion liters, while anhydrous production fell in line with estimates of 835 million liters.
Ethanol production rose to a cumulative 15.478 billion liters since April 1, down 4.12% compared with the previous season. About 10.686 billion liters of hydrous ethanol were produced, with 4.793 billion liters of anhydrous ethanol produced in the period.
The share of cane used for ethanol production totaled 62.96% in H2 July, up 1.31 percentage points from the previous harvest. The share of cane used in sugar production fell by the same amount to 37.04%, UNICA said.
Total ethanol sales during July reached 2.921 billion liters, with 222.343 million liters being exported and about 2.698 billion liters bound for the domestic market.
Domestic hydrous ethanol sales totaled 2.014 million liters in July, with 70.637 million liters exported and 755.024 million liters sold domestically, UNICA said.
Anhydrous ethanol sales totaled 906.73 million liters in July, with 151.706 million liters exported and the other 755.024 million liters sold domestically.
The Center-South Brazilian crop year runs from April 1 to March 30.
