The most recent fortnightly cane crush report updated by Unica was a typical off-season report, which showed minimal volumes of cane crush and production of derivatives. One of the points that drew attention was the lack of reprocessing of hydrated into anhydrous ethanol, as expected. This is surprising given the high level of stocks, the moderate recovery in sales, and the low levels of domestic production with the advance of the off-season. Another point that we can highlight in the report is the sales of anhydrous and hydrated ethanol in the first half of February and the projection that we can make for the rest of the month with such data.
Anhydrous sales of 497 mln liters in the first half of February must result in final consumption for February of 923 mln liters, already discounting the lower daily average demand (February has 2 days less than other months). The same can be said of hydrated ethanol, which must have sales of 1.04 bln liters using the standard of the first half of February against the second half of the month, already discounting the difference of two days. Even with the discount, it is interesting to note that February may have a very sharp high when compared to the January demand, when 997 mln liters were sold.
This is clearly explained by the extended Carnival holiday, which tends to increase the consumption of anhydrous and hydrated ethanol and gasoline. However, anhydrous ethanol must have a decline in the margin, with the projection of 923 mln liters in February, against 979 mln liters in January. This could mean greater demand for hydrated ethanol in view of the proximity of competitiveness that was seen in February. Even though only Mato Grosso has proved to be competitive, the other states had a reduction in the saturation of the levels of lack of competitiveness, which may have boosted hydrated ethanol sales. These data will only be confirmed in the entity’s next fortnightly report.
As for the textual part of Unica’s report, its title highlights the increase in the supply of hydrated ethanol from corn. This occurs when only one mill is crushing cane, while there are 11 mills crushing corn. In fact, for the fortnight, corn anhydrous ethanol accounts for 50.98% of the total ethanol supply, while the corn hydrated ethanol share is 48.12% of the total ethanol supply. However, in the accumulated volume of the season, corn anhydrous ethanol drops to 11.45%, and corn hydrated ethanol to 12.47%. Which only detonates the seasonality of the period. In the first half of February, the corn anhydrous ethanol supply was 93.2 mln liters, while corn hydrated ethanol hit 109 mln liters.