Raizen, a joint venture of Royal (RDSA) Dutch Shell Plc and Cosan Industria & Comercio SA in Brazil, will process 9 percent more sugar cane in the season starting in April than a year earlier, commercial director Ivan Melo said.
Raizen’s cane processing in the 2012-13 season will be 57.6 million metric tons, with sugar output up about 15 percent to 4.3 million tons and ethanol supply about 10 percent higher at 2.4 billion liters (634 million gallons), Melo said in an interview at the Kingsman conference in Dubai today. Sweetener content will also rise, he said.
“We have an accelerated replanting program and we have two mills, one in Mato Grosso do Sul and one in Goias, where production will be rising this year because they are new units,” he said. It takes five to six years for a new mill to reach capacity, he said. Melo is based in Sao Paulo.
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The cane crop in Brazil’s center-south, the main growing region of the world’s biggest producer, will be 536 million tons in the period, Melo said in a speech at the conference yesterday. That compares with an output of 492.7 million tons so far this season, data from Brazilian industry group Unica show. Sugar output in the area will be 33 million to 34.5 million tons, he said.
Sugar cane output in the center-south fell for the first time in a decade in the 2011-12 season after frost, flowering and dry weather damaged the crop, Unica said. Flowering and frost reduced productivity by 4 percent last year, Melo said.
“Everybody is accelerating planting so if we have normal weather conditions, without frost and flowering, it is normal that production will rise,” he said.
