Copersucar grows and produces twice as much as Cosan
O Estado de S. Paulo
The sugar and alcohol cooperative Copersucar will reach the mark of 114 million tons of sugar cane in the 2010/11 harvest with the admission of another shareholder, Grupo Clealco sugar Açúcar e Álcool, with two plants in the region of Araçatuba. "In the 2010/2011 harvest, we sold products equivalent to nearly two times the production of sugar cane of Cosan, the largest group of the sector in the Country", stresses out the Chairman of the Board of Copersucar S/A, Luis Roberto Pogetti.
The CEO of Copersucar, Paulo Roberto de Souza, says the admission of new shareholder with part of the strategic project of Copersucar to increase its participation in the region of Araçatuba. "The admittance of Clealco guarantees scale to our operations in the region, which should also grow in the origination of sugar from non-member companies in the region, as well as attract new members".
With the admittance of Clealco, the number of cooperative members increase to 39, belonging to 21 economic groups. Copersucar also gains its greatest industrial unit, Clealco Queiroz, with capacity to crush 5.5 million tons of cane sugar. In total, Clealco will add the cooperative a total of 9 million tons of processed sugar cane that result in 800 thousand tons of sugar and 170 million liters of ethanol. Until the admittance of the new member, the largest units of Copersucar were the plants of Grupo Zilor, with crushing capacity for 4.5 million tons of sugar cane. In the current harvest, Copersucar will sell 7.7 million tons of sugar, growth of 50% compared to the prior year and 4.7 billion liters of ethanol - an increase of 18%.
In the 2009/10 harvest, the earnings of Copersucar reached R$ 8 billion (US$ 4.4 billion), an expressive growth in relation to the R$ 4.5 billion (US$ 2.3 billion) registered in the previous harvest. In the same period, Cosan Açúcar e Álcool registered earnings of R$ 5.4 billion (US$ 2.7 billion). Copersucar also intends to grow, as of this harvest, the sale of ethanol and operate as a market regulator, as it is allowed to buy the product from other producing units. This year, Copersucar became an ethanol sales agent accredited by the Brazilian National Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuel Agency (ANP). "This way, we will be able to sell ethanol from other producing plants as well", explains Pogetti.