News
12.10.2009
Brazil Sugar Deliveries May Be Delayed by Above-Average Rains
Sugar deliveries from Brazil, the world’s biggest maker of the sweetener, may face delays next year after above-average rains pared cane yields and slowed the harvest, producer Grupo Jose Pessoa SA said.
Deliveries originally scheduled for the first half of 2010 may be delayed until later in the year or the first half of 2011, said Jose Pessoa de Queiroz Bisneto, president of Brazil’s sixth-biggest producer of ethanol from sugar cane. He estimates that about 10 percent of Brazil’s sugar-export contracts will have to be renegotiated.
“I had to renegotiate contracts, because four out of our five cane-crushing units are not running due to rains,” Queiroz Bisneto said in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo. Grupo Jose Pessoa is based in Sao Jose do Rio Preto and has units in Sao Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro and Parana states.
Above-average rainfall in Brazil has reduced the level of sucrose, the substance used to make sugar and ethanol, in cane by about 10 percent, he said. Sugar output in Brazil’s Center South, the world’s largest producing region, fell 17 percent in the first half of September from a year earlier because of rain, industry association Unica said Sept. 24.
Grupo Jose Pessoa plans to extend cane crushing to December or January. Last year, the group finished processing the cane harvest in mid-November.
Raw sugar prices have almost doubled on output shortfalls in Brazil and India. Sugar for March delivery fell 3.7 percent to $23.12 a pound at 3 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York.
Bloomberg
