Sao Martinho SA
BOVESPA:SMTO3
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Sao Martinho SA
Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2024 Analysis
Sao Martinho SA
Sao Martinho S.A., a major agribusiness player, demonstrated solid operational performance despite climatic impacts on its sugarcane crop. Crushing growth of 15% was realized, with a total of 23 million tons processed, nudging close to the industrial capacity of 24 million tons. The crop yield was robust, averaging 84.8 tons per hectare, signaling a 2% drop in Total Recoverable Sugars (TRS) chiefly due to excessive rainfall. However, the introduction of more resilient sugarcane varieties has contributed to an improved yield in both sugar, by nearly 25%, and ethanol production. Notably, sugar pricing has posed a significant advantage over ethanol, influencing the company's production strategy favorably.
In terms of financial results, a striking contrast was observed. While sugar volumes surged 16% alongside a 23% enhancement in average prices, ethanol struggled with a marked 23.6% price reduction compared to the previous year. This disparity led to a 9% EBITDA contraction and a steeper 30% fall in EBIT, reflecting operational leverage sensitivities. Complications extended to Sao Martinho's corn operations, with elevated corn prices and protracted ramp-up times resulting in additional pressure on profitability. After accounting for non-operating factors like improved out-of-court securities, net cash income plummeted from BRL 700 million to a mere BRL 1 million.
Sugar and ethanol production faced diverging margin trajectories; sugar enjoyed heightened profitability given its favorable market prices. Ethanol, on the other hand, failed to recreate its previous year's stellar margins due to absent export opportunities and delayed consumer transition from gasoline — influenced by nominal price drops in gas. Despite increased production, cash costs were affected by weather-induced planting delays, raising sugar and ethanol cash costs to around BRL 2,000 per ton and BRL 2,390 per cubic meter, respectively. Still, late-season ethanol consumption promises a gradual price recovery, potentially stablizing the market.
Looking forward, the company has hedged a substantial portion of its sugarcane output, with 45% of cane already secured at BRL 2,000 per ton, representing a 14% uptick from the nine-month average price. Projections suggest a strong upcoming year for sugar, backed by Sao Martinho's strategic shift to expand sugar production and leverage the economic corn production for ethanol, which is anticipated to run at full capacity daily. With around 55% of cane already hedged and the corn ethanol's cost expected to decrease, the company seems poised for an optimistic performance in the following year.
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[Interpreted] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Sao Martinho S.A conference call to discuss the results for the third quarter of the '23, '24 crop year. With us today are Mr. Felipe Vicchiato, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; Alessandro Soares, Head of New Business, External Communications and IR and the Investor Relations team of Sao Martinho. The audio and slides of this conference call are being broadcast simultaneously over the web at www.saomartinho.com.br/ri. Please note that all participants will only be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. We will then begin the Q&A session for investors and analysts when further instructions will be provided. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that certain information contained in this conference call may contain forward-looking statements. Such information is subject to known and unknown risks and also uncertainties that may cause such expectations not to be realized or to differ materially from what was anticipated. Now I would like to turn the floor to Mr. Felipe Vicchiato, who will initiate this conference call. Thank you.
[Interpreted] Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. It's at this conference call related to the third quarter of the crop year, I'll start with operating highlights on Page 3. We ended the crop in the midst of December in our 3 units with 15% crushing growth, reaching 23 million tons of crush cane. Our industrial capacity is 24 million tons with equivalent growth, both in our own cane and third-party cane. Field was up to reaching 84.8 tons per hectare for the entire sugarcane crop under our management. There was a 2% drop of TRS due to the rainfall during the period, and that's why the TRS growth per hectare was slightly below our 15% yield remaining at 12% to 13%. Our sugar production was almost 25% per ton, 21% above the results from last year, and this stems from a strategy of sugar ethanol mix, given the fact that prices of sugar were much better than that of ethanol at a given point of the crop year, the price of sugar vis-a-vis ethanol was very close to 100%. Our sugar-based ethanol production should increase by roughly 5% in our corn-based ethanol production up to now stood at 132,000 cubic meters. We are still processing corn and by March, that will be completed and then in the midst of April, we should have some more information for you concerning the process corn. So basically, what help productivity and yield work were the heavy rainfall in June, July of last year in addition to rains in April and May, which was quite good. So there was a climate normalization. And we also started with new varieties of cane, which are more resilient and gross better yield. And with that, our sugar and ethanol production overall was improved. For the next crop year, our sugar production should increase given some of the investments that we are doing to eliminate some bottlenecks from 2 of our mills, therefore, our mix should focus more on sugar next year if all of the sugar premium is maintained as it is at the moment. Now moving to the next slide. Here, we have a summary. For the results for the quarter, this quarter, we had a very good sugar performance in terms of volume. We saw 16% more than last year, there was increased production, average price was 23% higher. On the other hand, there was a drop in the average ethanol price, which was quite significant, 23.6% below the figures from last year and the volumes remained flat. And with that, we see an EBITDA drop of 9%. EBIT drop was even higher, around 30% given our operating leverage, which was relevant in what concerns price. Ethanol was not able to compensate for sugar. And in addition, in terms of the quarter and the year, we also have the impact of our corn plant as we already mentioned in previous occasions. This year, there was an issue where the price of corn was higher than expected. Also that came coupled with worst ethanol prices, the ramp-up of the plant took longer than anticipated, and that's what affected EBIT and EBITDA. The cash net income is down going from BRL 700 million to BRL 1 million. In addition to EBITDA and EBIT, as I mentioned before, there is also an impact when we recognize the out-of-court that securities from Copersucar. In the last period, the credit was improved, so it came in at later. Discounting for that, we would have a lower drop when compared to last year. So last year's number would be something close to BRL 200 million. Now moving to the next slide. Here, we have cash cost year-to-date and not accumulated 9 months and LTM. In order to better explain the evolution of cost, what is sugar and ethanol Consecana once price of sugar remained quite high throughout the season. So in the last 9 months, our sugar cash cost was close to BRL 2,000 per ton, 1,990, and our ethanol cash cost was down by 10%, totaling BRL 2,390 per cubic meter. Part of this increase in sugar and ethanol cash cost is directly related to the planting schedule that was carried over from one season to the next because as last summer was very rainy we delayed planting through to April and May, and that affects your cash cost. And this lower dilution is directly linked to our sales strategy for the season. As you could tell if you read the release, out of the total volume produced by the company, we sold approximately 60% during the first 9 months. So we still have 40% of TRS to be sold in the second half or in the next coming months. This also affects our unit cost and our cash cost. Then when we look at TRS equivalent, that cost was up almost 9%. Now in terms of the last 12 month, there was a drop close to 1%.Moving on our next slide. Here, we refer to the ethanol market. That was the main highlight this season. It was very positive the year before, I mean, last year, if we look at ethanol and sugar profitability, ethanol performed much better. Part of it was due to a good export window. We had that in 2022 that did not happen in 2023. I think the ethanol margin in '22 was 30% and sugar, 15%, I mean, the EBIT margin. And this year, the situation was totally reversed despite the fact that we had an increase in the auto cycle. As you can tell by the chart, it went from 54 billion to 57 billion liters. And the share of the auto cycle in hydrous remain quite low, around 20%, even though there is a parity as you can tell by looking at the line in red that remained... This, we have an interesting combination of the supply of ethanol was 150 million tons of crush cane with corn-based ethanol arriving from the plants -- I mean and production was coming from those new plants. This was combined with a delay on the part of consumers to migrate from gasoline to ethanol. Because in nominal terms, gas prices went down in 2023, so there was a certain lag or delay until consumers began to consume more ethanol than gas, simply motivated by price. In the last month, we realized that inertia decrease or ethanol consumption is much better. In the last 30 days, there was almost 3 million liters in sales when we look at some channels. So this is increasing inventories, and that's why prices are recovering slightly, and this should help us to sell our inventories. And by the same token, this will probably leads to a more normalized season throughout the year. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about the crop season but just to initiate this conversation, we are expecting a lower crop season next year, and ethanol supply will be more normalized. So we don't think that the parity, which is quite low will persist throughout the year. Before we open up for questions, we'll speak a little about the hedge of the company. We ended December with 45% on cane hedged for the year at approximate price of BRL 2,000 per ton. This is 14% above the average on cane price that we had in the 9 months of '24 considering that [Indiscernible] cost next year is expected to drop a little more, we should have a very good year for sugar. Today, what we have evolved from December to date, we have evolved in the hedge, we have about 55% hedged of our own gain. And I'd like to stress that we're thinking about producing more sugar, which will help reduce sugarcane ethanol, increase sugar production and increase corn ethanol production that will come with a lower cost given the price of corn and given the ramp-up of the corn operation, which is expected next year to operate at 100% capacity daily as has been the case in the last few days. Well, this is what we had for the initial remarks, we'll open the Q&A session now, so we can continue our conversation.
Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session for investors and analysts. [Operator Instructions]. Please hold as we collect the questions. Our first question comes from Ms. Isabella Simonato with Bank of America into, you may proceed.
[Interpreted] Thank you. Good afternoon, Felipe, and thank you for the call. I'd like to explore the ethanol dynamic a little further. You mentioned a very important point about supply and consumer behavior. And looking forward, and with the expectation of more corn ethanol in the market . Considering all production and others, how do you see the ethanol market perhaps in the midterm? I think this is important for us to understand whether we can go back to thinking of a market that runs very close to a 70% parity, which had been the case. I think that this past year, brought to light some dynamics that can be a little bit more hectic. That would be my first question. And when we look at next year -- absent getting ahead of myself, but how are you thinking about CapEx? Do you have plans regarding biogas and other things because the corn ethanol plant is complete. So if we have lower prices, a scenario of lower prices, can we expect a significant reduction in CapEx?
Isabella, thank you for the questions. Okay, how do we see the supply of corn ethanol in the projects announced? We have approximately 2.5 billion to 3 billion liters of corn ethanol coming to market in the coming years. These have been effectively announced with volume and expected yield. We believe that in the short term, assuming that sugarcane ethanol production will remain at the same level of last year because this is an important assumption, we would have 1 or 2 years of oversupply of ethanol because of these projects. In the past year, in the '23 crop year ending in March, we had an increase in the ethanol production, corn ethanol production, lower demand in the domestic market and no exports. Based on this supply and assuming the volumes that will be coming, we should have 1 or 2 years with enough supply of corn ethanol. However, what we see for next year is that the sugarcane ethanol production in Brazil, considering the weather as it is, it was pretty bad in December and in January, particularly in the West region of the state of Sao Paulo, coupled with some investments announced by several companies in crystallization of sugar, in other words, increasing the mix. Next year, we would have an ethanol supply scenario or a supply that is smaller than last year and thus, a more balanced price going back to parity. This is our expectation. We'll have to wait and see. That's the game for next year. Our cane ethanol production will be reduced, we'll have the corn operation so the ramp up there. But from what we are hearing with the mills, with the weather as it is, the sugarcane ethanol production will be reduced. So 2.5 billion liters, when we think about a slightly longer window is not a huge problem considering the current ethanol prices it's tighter to make a decision to build a new corn operation, a new corn mill. I mean not everyone is conservative as they should be but people should be more careful about it. In our case, we have the possibility of doubling our corn operation with the current conditions of corn at BRL 50 per bag and more expensive loans, the DGS price is dropping because of soybean, the DGS competes with soy. So this new plan should not materialize because the math doesn't work. We would have to assume a much cheaper corn price or a much higher ethanol price to make that decision. In a nutshell, I think that in addition to 2.53 billion liters of ethanol announced I don't think that a lot more will be announced in the coming months. So I think that I've addressed your first question. If you have a follow-up question, let me know. Second question was regarding CapEx. The only growth CapEx we have next year is the biomethane CapEx that we announced, total CapEx, BRL 250 million, of which approximately BRL 200 million will be in the next crop season. And this is no additional projects that we are thinking of investing in at this point. Thank you. Thank you for the questions.
Next question from Matthew with UBS.
[Interpreted] How can we reconciliate the sugar price this quarter? We would like to know if there are any impacts, any additional discounts that we are not seeing. A second question would be, what is the 2024, 2025 crop year expectation? I think you mentioned you have an expectation of less crushing in total. But how are you looking at this? What can we expect regarding total crushing? That was a general idea of the question because the sound was very muffled and practically impossible to understand.
I'll try to answer. If I leave anything out let me know. Regarding reconcile sugar price against the hedge price. That really depends on how you look at this because when we disclose the company's hedging, we give you an average. And depending on the quarter, perhaps I'll have a screen price to be realized, which is higher in the last quarter. Let me give you an example. Next quarter, you probably saw in the in the earnings release I have 385,000 tons of sugar hedged at BRL 2,600 per ton. That's the average price that will be reported in the next quarter. But when we look at the average for the year, it should be similar to my hedge. It's important to mention that when we report hedge per ton, this is a hedge per ton, what does not discount an elevation cost. We have an elevation cost of x dollars per ton and this cost is not something that we disclose because this is commercially strategic. But when we look at the revenue, the revenues net of this elevation cost, so that might be a difference. Your second question was regarding harvest projection. We haven't got a guidance to give you. Normally, we give a guidance towards mid-June but considering rainfall we've had so far in areas we renewed last year, we mentioned that we would be growing production in the season, close to 24,000 tons. But given the weather issues so far and what we are looking forward for February and March, that impacts sugarcane more towards mid to the end of the crop season, our crushing is expected to remain flat. Of course, that might change depending on rainfall until June. We still have a long way to go to adjust this number, but the best information we have regarding our crop is this flat crushing, crushing of 24,000 tons. So considering the margin expected it's kind of worse, but for the industry as a whole, the estimates by serious people who monitor the sector upclose, talking about crushing of about 590 tons, which would be 50 million tons less sugarcane crushed year-on-year. We think that this is really possible. We have a team visiting the sugar cane process Sao Paulo and the regions are very different. If we look at our mill itself, if you think about Boa Vista and Usina, Sao Martinho mill, we had a lot of rain and quite uniform rainfall, and that will increase productivity in yield. But in Santa Cruz and some of the regions, rainfall has not been uniform. So on average, things will remain the same but there's a lot of disparity among regions. The west of Sao Paulo is not doing that well and it's a region that should be impacted in terms of crushing. But at the end of the day, I think that this is healthy for pricing, particularly the price of ethanol. Because indeed, we had a year with good yield, et cetera, and not seeing that in the results and having worse earnings because there is a onetime of oversupply and price drops in this order of magnitude, then it's complicated. But these are expectations and let's see how -- and if this will materialize in the next 2 to 3 months, this will become a lot clearer.
Our next question is with Gabriel Barra with Citibank.
[Interpreted] Thank you. I have 2 questions. The first I think you said something about capital allocation in ethanol and today, it doesn't make a lot of sense given the outlook for production going forward. But I think it's interesting, if you could tell us a little bit more about the project and the company's ideas in terms of other projects in the other units, whether this is just a first step or it would take a little longer for us to see there or maybe we could see there in other mills? Can you tell us a little bit more about capital allocation? And the second question is about ethanol, corn-based ethanol more specifically, there is a good amount of corn-based ethanol for the next crop season at a high price. What is the profitability level and what do you expect going forward in terms of corn-based ethanol plant in terms of cogeneration, margin and returns based on what was expected at the beginning of the project? Because I know that there were some drastic changes related to some issues that you did mention, but going forward, I just want to know whether the mix is according to plan. Thank you.
Let me start with your second question. Maybe starting with your second question, will help me give you a little bit more color. I mean, in fact, that ethanol, that plant was really frustrating because things are very far from what we originally planned. There were 3 items that impacted. One was DDG price, ethanol price and then production. Production, not only I produce less when compared to what was anticipated, but the DDG quality of what I had at the beginning of the season was lower and I had to sell it at a lower price. So not only prices were down, but the quality of the product was worse and so I had to sell at a lower price. So at the end of the day, what I am delivering in terms of results cannot be used as a reference for anything. Having said that, let's turn the page and look at next year. The corn-based ethanol plant is already operating at full capacity. We hope that this will be the case throughout the entire next season. We will process about 490,000 to 500,000 tons of corn. The cost of corn, I bought it about BRL 60 to BRL 70 per bag this year, next year prices range between BRL 50 to BRL 55, so there was a 20% drop in the cost of corn, and that is corn accounts for 85% of the cost of ethanol or corn-based ethanol. And then you have DDGS, and in this case, productivity will be higher and the quality will be very good. The issue is or maybe the only thing that we should look at is the price of DDGS because of soybean prices. Because if you compare to soybean meal, if soybean prices are very low, the DDGS prices will not stand at BRL 1,200 as we expected at the beginning of the project. But I think with all of that, we will be able to have a return of BRL 100 million to BRL 150 million, even though ethanol prices are a bit more under pressure. And your first question about future expansions of biomethane. This biomethane plant, it was part of our innovation plan. We got funding from FINEP and BNGS. FINEP is funding almost the entirety of the project. This is a very competitive -- I mean, the cost of the funding is very competitive because without that with the current Biomethane prices today, return wouldn't be feasible because it will be much below the cost of capital. Therefore, I could tell you that without that funding, the project would not be feasible, but this is an innovation fund and this plant is very innovative. But if I scale that further, then I would have to go to market to get additional funding, and that at first, I mean, wouldn't be feasible because I wouldn't be able to have other plants in other units. The potential is there but the return considering biomethane prices doesn't pay off. Maybe what could change in the whole scheme of things is that, let's say, from today up to some years from now, if there is greater adoption of high-power engines using biomethane in replacement of diesel, I mean just as a reminder, consumption would be approximately BRL 500 million a year of diesel equivalent. How many millions of liters that will be? About 60 million liters, that's the number that John just gave me. This is my diesel cost, and I think this is the highest cost after sugarcane. Therefore, if we have a diesel engine technology for heavy trucks. And if this technology evolves, and evolves into biomethane, then 90% of our need will be supplied through our own plants. So that is it. That's it. So for now, we do not have any biomethane project under the current conditions, okay?
Our next question from Lucas Ferreira with JPMorgan.
[Interpreted] First of all, I would just like to clarify. In your corn-based ethanol plant, I mean, DDG, is that something that you already got it right? The prices are according to expected? Is there a premium? How is that evolving? And the other question is a bit more philosophical related to corn-based ethanol. I mean if you look back 5 years, there is a huge increase in corn-based ethanol, and there were projections that were quite different, certainly. It depends on a series of things, but the question is whether this is purely related to capital allocation in different plants or whether you have surplus energy and that will probably make sense? What about origination? What destination you will give to the corn? Should we expect to see accelerated growth of these plants when compared to sugarcane-based ethanol?
Well, Lucas, thank you for your questions. Your voice was not clear at all. If you want us to answer your question, again, please let us know. Let me see if I understood what you said. In terms of corn-based ethanol, we are seeing some announcements and that is 2.5 liters of ethanol that could come in the next few years. In fact, corn-based ethanol today it's cheaper than cane-based ethanol considering corn BRL 55 per bag. So if you look at my corn-based ethanol plant next year and the cost of that plant with DDG as a cost deduction it will cost 25% less than my cane-based ethanol. So in turn, it is much more competitive when compared to sugarcane-based ethanol. Well, we know that and we already saw that a few years back and that's why we decided to invest in this corn-based ethanol plant. And now we are looking and maybe invest more in sugar or even BV because I think we can make 500,000 tons of sugar, meaning a large volume of sugarcane-based ethanol, and through that plant, we will have larger exposure. And then we would only have and unhydrous for export if it makes sense in our Sao Paulo plant. So considering current corn prices, the cost is lower when compared to sugarcane-based ethanol. There is also the logistic cost that maybe one day that we will be able to see and [indiscernible], but there is already a logistic cost. There is abundant corn in the region, in Goias, Mato Grosso. So competition will come. But all of that, just to say that in order to get a new project approved, CapEx, according to our calculations, is slightly higher, and there is also the volatility of corn-based ethanol. And in terms of DDG, the quality of our DDG was worse at the beginning of the corn season. Now that has been fixed and DDG is already produced at high quality, and we are already selling at market price with no discount, okay?
Next question from Pedro Fonseca with XP Investimentos.
[Interpreted] Felipe. I'd like to have a follow-up question on corn-based ethanol. Perhaps you could remind us of the inventories, I think have inventories for a little over half a year. Does it make sense to accelerate purchases or the company is expecting even lower prices? My first point. The second point is whether you could bring us an update regarding maintenance. And what we could see in terms of maintenance costs and CapEx cost, if you could give us an update on what the company is discussing. That would be quite interesting for us. Thank you.
Regarding corn-based ethanol, let me get here the latest data. We had about 1 quarter of purchases or contracts already hedged with growers of the region at a price of close to BRL 52 per bag and we should have an inventory of 20% with an average of BRL 60 per bag approximately. So in other words, we have between 50%, 55% to be purchased still. The question now is, this is the moment when we should have rainfall in the state of Goias. The rainfall is expected to come on a regular basis for the planting of corn and we understand that we are going to have abundant corn in the region. We believe the prices will not drop a lot to the levels we saw last year in mid-May, June when the corn prices dropped a lot in the region because in Mato Grosso state, with the issues in the soybean crop that also impacted corn crops. So things will be balancing out. But in terms of the return of corn and cash generation, we should have next year between BRL 50 and BRL 55 per bag of corn. And you also asked an accounting question. And this is quite interesting. I'm getting old and I remember how things were. I joined Sao Martinho in 2006, in the following year we had an accounting obligation and we had to change the accounting, the whole off-season maintenance at the time, 2007 and 2008 was posted as a cost. And then there was an accounting standard thing it's wrong to post as a cost since it's an all of season maintenance that you're going to use in the next crop year, you need to activate this expense. We said fine, okay, perfectly, let's activate this spending. And comparing the EBITDA, our EBITDA increased but CapEx increased equally at the end of the day, it's just a matter of geography. And now we have this topic being discussed again. And in this topic, we have [ IBRACO ], understanding that we should go back to have off-season maintenance posted at a cost and not as CapEx. The industry spoke with [ IBRACO ] and they're still discussing this to see whether we perhaps cannot touch this for a while because if it's just a matter of accounting, if it's an asset or if it's a cost, it doesn't really matter. But if we have covenants of EBITDA that is very tight, we'll have to sit and renegotiate the covenant, which is our case. So this is an accounting matter that can really get in the way of the company, But you see this is still being discussed. The matter has not evolved yet. We are compliant with IFRS standards adopted in 2008, '09, But there's this topic, they want to change the back and if they change it back, we're going to have a tutorial we and all listed companies, [indiscernible] and others to explain why this changed, what the impact is? Can you imagine a foreign investor buying from several companies broader and look at this and the EBITDA dropping until we explain to them that, well, you see this was posted as CapEx. It will be very labor-intensive. But to date, this is still being discussed. So we are fighting to not have this change, so it won't affect the comparison in the market.
Thank you very much for the explanation. Just one point that came to mind. Could there be any tax benefit related to this? Can you say that again, please? This change, accounting change that is being discussed. Could you bring any type of tax benefit?
No, no, taxwise, nothing changes.
Next question from Thiago Duarte with BTG Pactual.
[Interpreted] Hello, Felipe. Good afternoon to all. I'd like to go back to the discussion of the next crop year. There is the weather between now and then you suggested we should expect a flat year in terms of sugarcane availability. I'd like to understand 2 things regarding that. Number one. Does this include any relevant rate of sugarcane that is in stand over? And if it makes sense, if we have a sugarcane production that is flat, should we think about TRS that was low? Because of this gain in the end of the crop year, could we expect growth in the TRS?
Thanks Thiago. It includes about 200,000 tons of stand over sugarcane that was at Boa Vista, approximately that. So that sugarcane will become 250,000 tons. It was to stand over 200,000 tons, if grew it will become 250,000 tons. If we assume that the weather is going to be dryer and it looks like it, we should be recovering TRS increase at least 2% if we have a La Nina scenario.
So another discussion you had regarding the cost of the scrap year. You mentioned ending in April that impacts the cost of the crop year, you mentioned that you should be selling almost 40%, and that will improve the unit cost. But thinking about the normalization in your calendar planting for next year in addition to a higher TRS per ton, could you tell us what you expect in terms of reduction of unit cost for 2024, '25?
Look, net of the planting point because we are planning now. So we're probably not going to have to delay planting. So that should bring a reduction of 5%, 6% ex-CONSECANA.
Next question from Larissa Pérez from Itau BBA.
[Interpreted] Well, still on that more philosophical note, it seems like all of the extreme climate events are becoming more recurrent and we spend a long time here talking about climate issue. I just want to understand what will be the ideal market conditions that would lead you to invest more or whether there is a very specific area that will be the focus of your investment in your CapEx. And you also talk more about a mix more inclined towards sugar and whether this would have an impact on SG&A because of freight. These are my questions.
Larissa, every investment in irrigation, I mean, they are economically feasible, we are already doing it. We have a plan for fertigation that involves about BRL 100 million that will be spent, I think, this year. I have to get the details, but it covers about between 10,000 to 15,000 hectares approximately. And this irrigation, it's not that huge irrigation that requires a major infrastructure. We irrigate using the [indiscernible] channel. This has good results. I mean the flip side of that is that we have to spend a little bit more diesel because the irrigation pumps utilize diesel. But our irrigation plan is underway, and we are doing whatever is feasible. There is also the issue of the water concessions because you need to have a permit, et cetera. So we are doing everything in our power that is feasible. But the whole industry is far from having an irrigation plan just to cover all the 300,000 hectares because this will be totally infeasible. Now, in regards to the impact of freight on SG&A. Sales of ethanol in the domestic market does not incur in sales expenses. Sugar production sales, I mean, we export more than 90% of our sugar. Therefore, it's only related to the distance to the port and most of it is then using Rumo. So once I increase my sugar production like 100,000 tons, so my sales expenses will increase. But when you calculate the mix, I mean, whether I'm going to produce more ethanol or sugar, we have to take the freight into account Let's take sugar at I mean, 2,700 per ton, then I have BRL 100 or BRL 150 of freight, so the number goes to BRL 550 per ton in the pocket. I mean, and if you compare it to ethanol, even if I have CBIO, et cetera, the remuneration is 80% less than that. I mean it will increase, but it's totally mitigated by a much better price with sugar rather than with ethanol.
In case there are any further questions, [Operator Instructions]. With that, we conclude the Q&A session. I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Felipe Vicchiato for his final remarks.
Thank you all for joining us today. We are certainly available to answer any further questions. Thank you, and have a very good holiday.
Sao Martinho's conference call is now concluded. We would like to thank you for joining us, and have a very good afternoon.