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Sugar Ship Lineup in Brazil May Worsen as Rains Return to Ports
Rain in Brazil next week may disrupt sugar loading at the country’s two biggest ports, threatening to worsen a record lineup of ships waiting to export the sweetener.
A record 115 vessels were waiting to load 3.53 million metric tons of sugar at Brazil’s six main ports yesterday, according to consultant Santos Associados Consultoria Ltda. and shipping company Unimar Agenciamentos Maritimos Ltda. The backlog is more than twice as big as last year, when 46 ships were waiting to export the sweetener.
Loading may be further delayed as a cold front moves into southern and southeastern Brazil, bringing a week of rainfall starting Aug. 1, Celso Oliveira, a meteorologist for Somar Meteorologia, said today by telephone from Sao Paulo.
“Every day we miss means the lineup is heading for a new record,” Nicolle Alves de Castro, a commercial assistant for Santos Associados, said today in a telephone interview from Santos, Brazil.
Ports are forced to halt sugar loading amid rainfall because the precipitation ruins the product.
The Port of Santos, Brazil’s largest, is able to load 213,000 tons of sugar a day, and the Port of Paranagua, the country’s second biggest, can load 50,000 tons a day.
Latin America’s largest economy ships 54 percent of the world’s sugar exports, up from 20 percent a decade ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lucia Kassai in Sao Paulo at lkassai@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net.
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