Higher revenue from ethanol to cushion sugar mills' topline and bottomline

Both production and sale volume jumps, 'B' molasses volume to add to overall quantity further

Following a narrow movement in sugar prices, mills are banking largely on ethanol to improve their financial health and remain afloat in business.

Oil marketing companies (OMCs) have issued a tender for procurement of 485 million litres of ethanol from ‘B’ heavy molasses and 18.4 million litres from sugarcane juice for the current sugar season beginning October 2018. This additional tendered quantity is likely to result in diversion of 0.5 million tonnes of sugar into ethanol in addition to the existing quantity directly procured from molasses generated automatically from cane crushing.

Apart from the additional quantity of ethanol production and