Insight Focus

  • We think Thailand will crush 96m tonnes of sugar this season.
  • This is lower than the 100m tonnes most of the cane mills forecast.
  • Sucrose yields remain excellent, which is helpful.

Thailand 22/23 Crushing

Cane mills in Thailand have already crushed 74.8m tonnes of cane, 0.9% lower than the same time last year. This is because mills in the Central region delayed crushing until the end of December to allow fields to dry out and cane time to mature.

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The mills believe they will crush more than 100m tonnes of cane this year given the good amount of rainfall in 2022 and the high cane price offered to farmers.

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However, our view is different. Our crop tour last month revealed that the cane is tall but the stalks are thin, and so underweight. We think this could be because of low fertiliser application. 

We think that cane harvesting area has expanded by 4% as a result of the attractive cane price but the agricultural yield will remain similar to last year’s at just 9.7mt/rai.

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As a result, we think Thai cane mills will only crush 96m tonnes of cane this year.

Sucrose Yields/CCS (Commercial Cane Sugar)

The CCS is the amount of potentially recoverable sugar in the cane plant. CCS levels were exceptionally high in the first week of crushing season because most of the mills that started to crush first were located in the Northeast which usually has a high level of CCS. The reported CCS then stabilised when mills in the Central region began to operate.

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With this, sucrose yields are similar to last year’s at around 11%. We therefore think Thailand will produce 10.6m tonnes of sugar this year.

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Some mills have recently announced they intend to stop crushing cane shortly. We think this is because in 2022 some mills were still processing cane when rains arrived in April. Cane quality was poor as field access became increasingly difficult. Mills are therefore hurrying farmers to deliver cane today.

We expect the first mill closures to happen imminently, with the pace accelerating in March and the final mills closing in early to mid-April.

Kanjanaporn Dechwan

Kanjanaporn (Atom) joined CZ’s analysis team mid-2022, she graduated with a degree of Agriculture from Thailand (previously explored Food science and Technology & Agriculture for 6 months as an intern in Japan). Before joining CZ, Atom began her career in the entertainment industry and is now responsible for CZ App content from Thailand, Crop production data and other market analysis such as Sugarcane, Grain, Cassava etc.

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