Porto Alegre, May 5th, 2025 – Data from Unica’s most recent biweekly report for the first half of April show a scenario in which the production mix is even less concentrated on ethanol than is usually observed at this time of the season. Usually, observing the individual production mix pattern of each mill in the Center-South, it is clear that the production units tend to concentrate between 70% and 100% of the production mix on ethanol in the first four fortnights of activity at the beginning of each crop.
However, in this 2025/26 season, the average production mix of mills in the Center-South has shown a lower level of concentration in ethanol than is usually observed for the period. And this is not an isolated movement in the first half of April, as this pattern of a less concentrated mix for ethanol has been observed since March. SAFRAS & Mercado points out that the mix remains mostly for ethanol but in a proportion clearly lower than the individual pattern of mills, which ranges from 70% to 100%.
The data from April now show that 55% of cane went to ethanol and 44% to sugar. In March, a less favorable scenario for ethanol was also observed, with 69% of the mix in the first half of the month and 56% in the second half. This pattern is even below the 5-year average for the same period, which indicates a mix pattern of 65% for ethanol. Therefore, in the comparisons with the 5-year historical average and the individual crushing patterns of each mill, the production mix is markedly less concentrated in ethanol compared to what is usually observed at this time of the crop.
This leads to a greater growth in short-term sugar production, which in turn leads to greater availability of supply in the international market, culminating in the reinforcement of the decline in sugar prices in New York. An indication of this was the closing of the NYSE on April 30, the date of the update of the Unica report, with a decline of 1.65% from the current driver, July/25.
This is also evidenced by the behavior of the supply of sugar and ethanol in the short term, with the biweekly production of sugar at 730 thousand tons, showing an increase of 3% YoY and an exponential increase of 263% in the margin, compared to the preceding fortnight. In turn, anhydrous ethanol, with its supply of 179 mln liters, showed a 21% increase in the year and gains of 384% in the margin, while hydrated ethanol, with the production of 739 mln liters, showed a 44% increase in the margin and gains of 6% YoY, being the product that grew the least in the short term, without maintaining the three-digit growth pattern of both anhydrous ethanol and sugar.
Another point that deserves attention is the continued increase in the proportion of corn ethanol supply compared to that of cane ethanol, which has continued to gain strength since the previous year. In the first fortnight of the current 2025/26 crop, the supply of corn ethanol (between anhydrous and hydrated ethanol) was 39% of the total, compared to the share of supply of 32.17% during the same period of the previous crop, up 8% from the preceding fortnight, the second of March, in which corn held 30% of the total ethanol supply. There was also a 6% increase YoY compared to the share of corn ethanol supply of 32.17% at the same time last year.
