|
 The largest sugar and ethanol cooperative in Brazil, Copersucar (Cooperative of Sugarcane, Sugar and Alcohol Producers of São Paulo State) informed on Wednesday, October 1st, that it had become a company and plans to triple its production in the next ten years.
Founded in 1959 Copersucar expanded operations and became one of the world's biggest private exporters of sugar and ethanol. Currently it has about 5% of the world sugar trade and, with its new legal status, will displace Cosan as the largest sugar and ethanol producing company in Brazil.
"The sugar and ethanol industry is expanding fast so it's important to grow to keep the relevance we always had," Copersucar CEO Luis Roberto Pogetti was quoted by Reuters.
Brazil's booming sugar and ethanol industry has been going through an aggressive consolidation in recent years with cane output expected to double in ten years but no more than 30 big groups will be in control of production, compared with around 200 currently.
The co-op was composed of 33 mills in São Paulo, Paraná and Minas Gerais states, which now become the shareholders of Copersucar's newly created holding company, Produpar.
Produpar intends to increase sugar cane crushing capacity to 200 million tons by 2018, up from 70 million tons this season, and increase its local sugar and ethanol market share to 30% in 10 years from 14% currently.
It also intends to buy sugar and ethanol from independent producers to be sold on the domestic and international markets. Turnover from this business, which will reach 200 million US dollars this season, is expected to double in 2009/10.
Pogetti said Copersucar's strategy of having long term supply contracts with foreign sugar and ethanol buyers will likely be strengthened in the future. The company has commercial contracts with some of the world's biggest sugar refineries and also with final ethanol consumers.
"In a market of increasing volatility... it's part of our strategy to invest in long term relations," he said.
About 70% of Copersucar's ethanol exports are to final destinations. In sugar, 80% of its sales are to refineries, most of them in the North of Africa, Middle East and Asia.
In the current crop Copersucar expects to sell a total of 4.3 million tons of sugar, up 22% from the previous season, and 3.8 billion liters of ethanol, up 18%.
The company's exports should reach 3 million tons of sugar, up 25% over the previous crop and 1 billion liters of ethanol, nearly 50% more than last season. Total sales are forecast to reach 2.9 billion US dollars.
Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.
Great strategy !
Why doesnt Brazil quintuple its production in the next decade ?
You should !