Day 10
Sao Pedro do Ivai

Today we visited Renuka Vale Do Ivai in Sao Pedro do Ivai. They produce sugar and also ethanol. Shree Renuka Sugar Ltd, whose head office is in India, is fifth in sugar production in the world. There are two plants here, one hundred percent owned by this company since 1910. They produce sugar, ethanol, and power. The plant started off in 1981 as a distillery until it was encouraged to produce ethanol by the government. It produces 1,000 tons per day of raw sugar, 450 kiloliters per day of hydrous ethanol, 300 kiloliters per day of anhydrous ethanol and has 18 MW power generation. It uses about 7 megawatts of power. The plant has several environmental commitments including management of solid waste and gas emissions and a partnership with public plant nurseries.

At the plant, they do pretty much everything except packaging. They test sugarcane from farmers and pay them based on the quality, but most of it is produced by the company. The company then produces ethanol and sells the fuel-grade product to Petrobras and similar companies. Government laws prohibit them from selling ethanol straight to the consumer. Another interesting fact – there is no irrigation system for the sugar crops; the vinasse that is used for fertigation is enough for the crops.

On the tour, we learned about the processes that take place on a typical day at the plant. About 2,000 people work in the fields harvesting sugarcane. Once harvested it is brought to the plant where three samples are taken from each truck and tested for quality. Then the sugarcane gets processed, first by a series of crushers that extract nearly all of the juice from the crops. The scent of the fermentation process beginning in the sugarcane awaiting processing encompassed the whole plant. We were also able to see the control room and the labs where the sugarcane and ethanol production analysis takes place.