• Australia is one-third through the cane crush, which is already behind expectations.
• We had previously factored in a 5% reduction in sugar production from last year.
• However, if dry and hot weather continues then there is further downside risk to production.

Unstable Weather Leading to Lower Crop   

• Australia’s crush is currently 25% down cumulatively compared to last year due to wet weather in Jun.
• After a slow start, crushing pace is now similar to previous years.
• We currently expect production to end up 5% lower than last year, coming in at 4.35m tonnes of sugar.
• However, if the current dry and hot weather continues then we could see the sucrose content of the cane being affected negatively.
• There is therefore downside risk to our sugar production expectations, and we could see 4.1m tonnes produced.

• Unstable weather throughout the summer is partly to blame for the below par crop so far.
• South Queensland had a dry start to the year with not much rain, extensive irrigation managed to reduce the downside for the crop.
• On the other hand, North Queensland had prolonged wet weather, affecting sugar content.