Indian sugar mills seen diverting 4.5M tons of juice and B-molasses to ethanol in 2022/23

In India, the Financial Express newspaper reports that Indian Sugar Mill Association data shows sugarcane acreage will increase by 4% in the season starting in October to 5.82 million hectares but even so, sugar production will dip as a result of diversion to ethanol production. As much as 4.5 million metric tons of B-molasses and cane juice are expected to be used for ethanol rather than sugar production as the country runs towards its 20% ethanol blending mandate. For the current season, about 3.4 million tons of sugar was diverted to ethanol resulting in 3.6 billion liters of ethanol that has been contracted by oil marketing companies as of July 10.