Brazil corn-ethanol demand triples in 2018/19, rising to 10 mil mt by 2023

Brazil’s fledgling corn ethanol industry is expected to triple its output in the current April-March fiscal year to 1.5 billion liters, consuming 3.75 million mt of the grain from the center-west growing region, Glauber de Silva president at Aprosoja told Agricensus.

Brazil’s corn ethanol mills produced over 500 million liters of the biofuel in the year ending in March, double the 234 million liters the season before, according to preliminary data from Brazil’s sugar and ethanol industry association Unica.

“Investments in corn ethanol capacity right now offer much better returns than investments in sugarcane crushing capacity, especially for add-on or flex mills,” Silva said.

“In five years, the corn ethanol industry could consume 10 million mt of the grain.”

Brazil currently has a handful of corn ethanol mills concentrated in the top corn-producing state of Mato Grosso that grows nearly 31 million mt of corn a year.

All but one of the mills were constructed as add-on plants to existing sugarcane mills, which reduces costs by allowing shared use of infrastructure, especially energy use.

The a stand-alone operation that is jointly owned by US agricultural group Summit and a local agricultural group Tapajos Participacoes. The joint venture known as FS Bioenergia earlier this year announced an investment to expand the existing mill and build another in the state.

Using the industry average of 400 liters for every mt of corn, the ethanol industry consumed 1.25 million mt of the grain over the past 12 months.

The rest of the country’s 2017/18 ethanol output of 27 billion liters came from sugar cane.

Brazil’s corn output doubled over the past decade to 97 million mt in the previous 2016/17 harvest with exports approaching 30 million mt a year.