Sugar loading at Brazil’s biggest port was halted today because of rain, which may increase a record backlog of vessels waiting to pick up the sweetener, Brazil’s Copersucar SA said.
Loading at the port of Santos has been shut since 9 a.m. New York time, said Paulo Roberto de Souza, chief executive officer of Sao Paulo-based Copersucar, which owns the second- biggest sugar terminal at the Port of Santos.
“The situation is worrisome, because we are already working at full capacity and the rain will slow us down,” he said today in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo.
Brazilian ports haven’t been able to keep up with record output of the sweetener. The number of vessels waiting to load sugar at six Brazilian sugar ports dropped to 103 from 106 a week ago, according to Santos Associados Consultoria Ltda. and Unimar Agenciamentos Maritimos Ltda., a shipping company.
Brazil, the world’s largest sugar producer, ships 54 percent of the world’s sugar exports. The Santos Port has the capacity to ship 2 million metric tons of sugar a month.
The Santos Port probably won’t meet its target of loading 3 million tons of the sweetener in July, Souza said.
“With or without rain, there is no way Santos is shipping 3 million tons this month,” he said.
Rain is expected to continue through Saturday, according to the port’s website.
Raw sugar for October delivery climbed as much as 0.16 cent, or 0.9 percent, to 17.26 cents a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York and was at 17.18 cents at 8:45 a.m. local time.
Copersucar is a Brazilian sugar and ethanol cooperative with 39 associate mills that exports more of the sweetener than Thailand. It plans to export 6 million metric tons of sugar next year. Thailand, the world’s second-biggest exporter after Brazil, exported 5.2 million tons last year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lucia Kassai in Sao Paulo at +55-11-3048-4639 or lkassai@bloomberg.net
Bloomberg - Lucia Kassai
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jessica Brice at +55-11-3048-4533 or jbrice1@bloomberg.net
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