Lucknow
The sugar export contracts are nearing the record 10 million tonne (MT) mark for the current domestic sugar season 2021-22.
According to the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), almost 9.5 MT of export contracts have already been entered into so far, of which 8.6 MT have been physically exported till the end of May 2022.
Recently, the Centre has capped sugar exports at 10 MT for the current season.
Meanwhile, ISMA will obtain satellite images of sugarcane area across India in latter part of June 2022 to get an idea of the acreage available for the next harvesting season (2022-23).
Later, the Association will make preliminary estimates of cane availability and sugar production for 2022-23 sugar season.
In the current season 2021-22, a total of 522 sugar mills had participated in the crushing operations as against 506 mills last year.
So far, 35.2 MT of sugar has been produced against 30.7 MT produced last year in the corresponding period. About 493 mills have stopped crushing, while most of the still-operating units are located in Maharashtra.
Since a special crushing season is in progress in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, another 0.6 MT of sugar is expected to be produced by these states.
Accordingly, ISMA has revised its all-India sugar production estimate for 2021-22 to 36 MT after considering the diversion of 3.4 MT of sugar equivalent into ethanol.
Last year, India produced 31.12 MT of sugar after the diversion of about 2 MT of sugar for ethanol production.
Meanwhile, domestic sugar sales by the end of April 2022 have been estimated at 16 MT against 15.26 MT in the corresponding period last year.
Further, the domestic sugar sales quota released by the Centre up to June 2022 is higher by 0.55 MT than that in the corresponding period last year. Therefore, ISMA has estimated domestic sugar consumption in the current season to be at 27.5 MT against 26.55 MT last year.
Considering an opening stock of about 8.2 MT as of Oct 1, 2021, domestic consumption of 27.5 MT, exports of 10 MT and the estimated sugar production of 36 MT, the closing stock as of 30 September 2022 is expected to be 6.7 MT, which would be sufficient for three months of domestic consumption.