Raizen SA

BOVESPA:RAIZ4

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Raízen S.A. Second Quarter of the 2023, '24 crop year earnings presentation. This presentation is being recorded, and the replay will be available at the company's IR website at ri.raízen.com.br/en and at Raízen's official YouTube channel. [Operator Instructions]. This call will be presented in English with Portuguese transcript. For the Q&A session, there will be a simultaneous translation to Portuguese. [Operator Instructions].

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference regarding the company's business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals are the beliefs and assumptions of Raízen's Executive Board using current information available. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors and analysts should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario, the industry and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in their respective forward-looking statements.

Today, we have the presence of the following company's executives. Ricardo Mussa, CEO; Carlos Moura, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; and Phillipe Casale, Head of IR.

Now I will turn the conference over to Mr. Casale. Please, you may begin your presentation.

[Phillipe Casale, executive]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Raízen's Q2 earnings conference call of the crop year 2023, '24. I am Phillipe Casale, Head of Investor Relations. And here with me is our CFO, Carlos Moura. For the Q&A session, our CEO, Ricardo Mussa, will join us as well. This conference call is being webcast on our YouTube channel with Portuguese subtitles.

I now invite Carlos to kick off the results presentation. Thank you, Carlos.

[Carlos Alberto de Moura, executive]

Good morning, Phillipe. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'll start this presentation by highlighting the progresses made in Raízen priorities and value creation levers. The structural advances that we mentioned in the previous quarters are taking shape now, resulting in business generation with increased profitability.

Firstly, about Mobility. We fine-tuned our supply and commercialization strategy in Brazil, considering a less volatile environment. We continue to expand our network, which reached 8,200 service stations in the 3 countries where we operate, strengthening our customer-centric approach based on Shell integrated offering, as we have presented in our Raízen Day. We are prepared to navigate a further challenging scenario even after the elections in Argentina.

Our second pillar, agriculture productivity. With the improvement in all of our KPIs, we speed up the crushing already resulting in cost dilution. We expect to crush at least 80 million tons of sugarcane up to the end of this crop, continue to reap the rewards of this journey over the coming years.

In sugar, the fundamentals behind supply and demand are pointing to a longer cycle of higher profitability. We are following our strategy of advancing across the value chain through direct sales to the final destination and again, the customer-centric approach.

In ethanol, our fourth pillar, we have been adapting the pace of sales for this year to face the scenario of low market prices in Brazil being by the higher supply level and at the same time, the lower consumption of hydrous ethanol. We have decided to maintain higher inventory levels, positioning ourselves for a favorable scenario ahead, maintaining the expansion of geographies and applications. With that strategy, we will keep delivering a premium over the benchmark price in Brazil.

I would like to highlight 2 positive examples. We partnered with Wärtsilä, a giant maritime solutions company, in a program to promote ethanol as an alternative fuel for shipping with the potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from maritime sector by up to 80%.

And in aviation on last August, we became the world's first biofuel producer to obtain the ISCC CORSIA PLUS certification, which attests that our ethanol meets the sustainable aviation fuel.

Another relevant pillar is Raízen Power. We intensified our strategy of connecting new clients, gaining scale and forging new alliances by investing in technology to scale up our business model. Now we have more than 40,000 customers across our entire portfolio, including e-mobility.

Last but not least, we have made significant progresses in our E2G program. The operations at the Plant #1 at Costa Pinto, Piracicaba continues to operate as planned, which will lead us to achieve the total production over 30 million liters this crop.

The conclusion of works on the Plant #2 in Bonfim biopark represents additional capacity of 82 million liters. We have made progress in the construction of the next 6 E2G plants, as shown in the map, underscoring our vocation to become the world's leading supplier of cellulosic ethanol.

Finally, I must highlight the discipline to sustain our current capital structure with prudential leverage, mitigating seasonal effects of working capital on the balance sheet, as evidenced by the reaffirmation of our investment grade rating.

Moving to the highlights of the results disclosed yesterday. Our margins expanded resulted from the dynamics of fuel prices. The better operational margins in Mobility segment boosted the growth of the Raízen adjusted EBITDA. In the Renewables and Sugar segment, we have built up inventories, which will be sold in the last 2 quarters of this crop year when we reap all the benefits of the sugar prices and the dilution of fixed costs due to the expansion of crushing and operational leverage.

Although the expansion of the operational profits, our net income in this quarter was affected by the interest and exchange rate variations on our offshore entities. ROCI also improved reflecting better operational results in connection with our current capital allocation. The pace of investments in line with our planning, and we maintained our leverage below 2x, amid an environment of volatility in the capital markets and higher interest rates.

I now invite Phillipe to provide the details of each business segment.

[Phillipe Casale, executive]

Thank you, Carlos. In the Mobility segment, we delivered robust EBITDA growth in the quarter. In addition to the higher sales we registered, strong evolution in margins, especially in our Brazilian operations, which were adversely affected by the operational scenario in the previous quarter that lasted until July. From August on, we have taken concrete actions related to the decisions taken in the first quarter, leading to healthier operational margins.

We strengthened our relationship with resellers, surpassing the mark of 7,000 service stations in Brazil while reducing our exposure in channels with lower value added. The penetration of the Shell Box app as a payment alternative keeps increasing, reporting almost BRL 7 billion in transactions over the last 12 months. We have also intensified investments in our brand in the Shell V-Power family in convenience and lubricants as this is what matters the most in terms of the value proposition to our clients. As a result, marketing expenses increased during the year, also affected by higher sales volume.

At LATAM operations, we continue to grow our network despite the complex economic scenario. Sales volume and EBITDA remained solid, and we maintained a balanced capital structure to face capital controls in place in Argentina.

Now moving on to Renewables and Sugar. We ended the second quarter of the crop year with an improvement in all productivity indices. We are happy to show the results of our intense journey to recover agricultural wheels, which is one of our main commitments to our shareholders. This crop year, the weather has contributed positively to boost the crushing volumes, the tons of cane per hectare, as well as maximizing the sugar reduction mix.

I want to emphasize that for this year, we expect to crush at least 80 million tons of sugarcane. We will keep the pace of this journey, maintaining the focus on managing and investing on the fields to conclude the recovery of the productivity. Soon all of our sugarcane plantations will reach their potential, resulting in higher product availability, greater operational efficiency and cost dilution.

Speaking of costs, by analyzing the cost of production, we can already see the effects of such dilution and efficiency in the results, thanks to improving yields. Prices of diesel, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs also reduced, contributing to improved cost dynamics. And this effect will become even more evident as our sales pace picks up over the next 2 quarters of this crop year.

Looking at the EBITDA from Renewables and Sugar, despite improved margins brought by better sugar prices and cost efficiencies, sales volume was lower in the period. The pace of shipments reflects our strategy for this year with higher inventory levels now and future sales to capture better prices and returns. At Raízen Power, we continue to report an expansion of the customer base and volumes in distributed generation.

Before finishing an update on sugar and ethanol prices. As you can see, ethanol prices remain lower than last year's levels, reflecting the higher supply in the country caused by the increased production of sugarcane and corn-based ethanol, which has maintained the parity against gasoline below the historical levels. However, integrated position with a portfolio that serves diverse applications and markets helps us to get higher prices for our own products. Our marketing strategy continues as planned, aiming to maintain higher returns over local market prices.

In Sugar, prices increased for the sixth year in a row, representing a 25% premium over last year. Reiterating what I said during our last presentation, we have hedges denominated in BRL terms that will ensure higher returns, reflecting; first, the higher volume, the better prices and also the lower production costs.

Well, I will now call Carlos back for his closing remarks.

[Carlos Alberto de Moura, executive]

Thank you, Phillipe. Lets now explore our cash flow in this quarter, starting with the operating cash flow. The working capital and operating cash flow lines reflect: first, the seasonality of the crop year with the building up of inventories for future sales using available working capital to generate and drive business decisions within the group; second, the recovery of the Mobility segment's results; third, in the year-to-date basis, we reported around BRL 1.8 billion in compensation and reimbursement of tax credits. The details are available in the Note #8 of the financial statements.

As for cash flow from investments, we maintained our capital allocation priorities, starting with the recovery of agricultural productivity in conjunction with investments to expand our E2G footprint. We are also investing in the expansion of our Shell network, also in the integrity of assets and product mix at the Argentina refinery and the growth of our Raízen Power business, mainly in distributed generation.

Cash flow from financing activities includes the liability management during the period, in line with the guideline of maintaining the equilibrium of our balance sheet by extending their average debt maturity. I highlight here the green financing carried out with SACE, the Italian export credit agency for EUR 300 million in the 12-year facility. Despite the seasonal increase in absolute debt in this quarter, note that all indicators always converge at the end of the crop year due to our sales, margins and operational cash flow basis.

Finally, I reaffirm our commitment to the guidance announced for the crop year. Raízen is presenting a clear progress in this quarter. Therefore, we can reasonably assume that margins from Sugar and Renewables will further improve, while Mobility margins should stabilize around healthy levels. As usual, we present the balance amongst opportunities and risks for better evaluation of the scenario ahead.

From the opportunities, I highlight the performance of agriculture yields continue to promote the operational leverage. In Sugar, we are advancing further indirect sales to destination, thereby increasing returns in a highly favorable cycle for the commodity and the diluted fixed costs is stated in the cost of agricultural production, CPA. As for Mobility, margins will drive above BRL 100 per cubic meter, due to our improvements and the operational scenario ahead.

An important initiative at Raízen was the implementation of the expense management program denominated [ Conta Comigo ], which focused on reducing expenses through management based on a PDCA approach with a matrix view by packages and entities as well the simplification of the organizational structure based on reducing the span of reports and other initiatives.

Regarding challenges, I point out the volatility in external factors that could affect our business, such as the El Niño, which could potentially delay the sugarcane harvest, as well the macroeconomic challenges, especially in our Argentine business.

Last but not least, ethanol prices are requiring greater progress and resilience on our end, to sell our products at a premium. With improved results, our team remains further motivated and determined to deliver the results of this crop year. I also would like to announce that we are releasing the first version of a guide containing the key ESG performance indicators of our company. Our objective is providing more transparency and understanding about Raízen ESG indicators and its evolution, tracking progresses and our journey and commitments embedded in our strategy.

Finally, we have launched the ELOs impact report, where we highlight the progresses and challenges of our internationally recognized supply chain management program.

Now I invite Ricardo Mussa to join us for the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Mr. Bruno Montanari from Morgan Stanley.

[Bruno Montanari, analyst]

Two on my side. I was wondering if you could help us understand how the destocking cycle now should take place in both sugar and ethanol? Is it more likely to happen in the current quarter or in the last quarter of the crop year or perhaps even into the next year? So any sense of time line would be super helpful.

And then looking at your sugar equivalent costs, we saw some pretty encouraging trends on the costs coming down as we crush more. So curious to hear if you can give us a sense of how much further cost could go down in the coming quarters? That would be super helpful.

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Bruno, thank you, Ricardo Mussa here. I'll take the first question, and Carlos can take the second one. Regarding the destocking on the sugar and ethanol. Clearly, ethanol is more for the last quarter. That's when the -- it's going to be from January and February, I believe. So of course, we do not control that. We are in a very good position here, because we are a vertically integrated to understand what's happening on the ethanol market. Bear in mind also that we have a strong export also not related only to the harvest or the inter-harvest.

On the sugar side, then it's going to be more, I would say, towards starting now until February and March. So it's going to be divided on both quarters, I think, equally. Of course, the logistics and the weather will be determining also the pace of the export segment on the sugar side, but it should be pretty much say, stable on both quarters. I think ethanol is more towards the last quarter and sugar is stable on both quarters, okay?

[Carlos Alberto de Moura, executive]

Thank you, Mussa. Good morning, Bruno. Good morning all. First, I would like to divide my answer in 3 parts. Related to -- if we analyze the industrial production cost that you can see in the Page 7 in our release, we are dividing in 3 products; the sugarcane supplier costs and the lending costs, the leasing costs, the CCT, the cut, loading in transportation and the industrial costs. We are taking advantage of lower cost of diesel and overheads in general, release in the inflation and having a much better performance in terms of industrial productivity. All in all, I expect that we have at least the same pace of reduction in about 4% to 5% going forward until the end of the crop year.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Mr. Gabriel Barra from Citibank.

[Gabriel Coelho Barra, analyst]

I have 2 questions here. The first one on marketing services. We have seen a really strong quarter for, let's say, all of the players, strong margins, better competition dynamics. Something have -- it seems that have changed here, right? So my point is that when you look into the company margin and compared with the other players, we have seen, let's say, a weaker margin, but I think that we should also look at the return of the business. That's also an important discussion here.

So the first question is if you could give us more details here in terms of the company's strategy on this sector, mainly in Brazil, how should you see this strategy? And what's the effect on the company's strategy on margins and the return? If you could give us more color on that to be really helpful.

And the second one on E2G. Recently, you have seen the new -- the inauguration of the new plant in Bonfim. So I feel that there are some points here that I want to discuss and maybe you can give more color on that. The first one is the ramp-up time line that you should see for this new plant at what production we should see for the next crop season?

In regard the second-generation ethanol price, one of the questions that I have here is regarding the pricing, because we have seen a more challenged scenario for ethanol price in Brazil. My point is how we should see this affecting E2G price in the short term or even in the long run, if there is an impact or this is a different kind of business -- a completely different kind of business? And ethanol price when the first generation should not impact the E2G price in the long run? So that's my questions.

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Thank you, Barra. Great question. On the strategy, we keep the same pace. So we have, of course, more focused on getting more profitability and return for our investment on the Mobility business. So clearly, the focus here is not market share is getting a more profitable business. We are investing a lot on branding. So you can see that a lot of what we are doing with Formula 1, with all the advertisement and securing to our network the best possible package. That has been our focus and that's what we're being delivered. That's why you see the growth in our network.

Even in these very healthy margins that you have seen, we keep growing our network branded Shell, and that's where we rely on our network. We're going to support them as much as we can, and we keep growing the network and the brand, that's the strategy. So we are going to see more and more the Shell V-Power investments. We're going to see more and more the investment in the Shell V-Power ethanol, on the convenience stores together with Venza. So we are going to focus on growing the branded and the return of the capital invested.

Of course, we still focus on the cost side. So we are going to see in the [ Conta Comigo ] and everything, the simplification is structure, delivering better given cost results moving ahead. But we are not taking any change on our marketing strategy, increasing our marketing expenses and improving the profitability of the branded side. So that has been the case for the past, I would say, quarters and we're not going to change.

On the E2G, we're very excited. The Bonfim plant is operational now. Of course, the ramp-up. We are very concerned on the pretreatment process. It was really, really good. The results of the pretreatment, the first initial results better than we expected, Barra. So the ramp-up for next year, just putting some numbers in your mind here, the potential of the plant is BRL 82 million. We should have about BRL 60 million for this particular plant. That's what we expect. That's the target for next year. But given the initial results, we are very excited that we are going to achieve those targets.

Price-wise, it's a very different market. So 2 points here, Barra. First, remember that for all those plans, we already secured long-term contracts with minimum price guaranteed. So we don't have any downside on the prices, not related to E1G price. But even on the spot market, where we still see prices above EUR 1,200 per cubic meter. So it's still very healthy margins. It hasn't changed much, to be honest. We're still seeing very strong demand for E2G. And now the new markets are sustainable addition, fuel and plastics -- less on the fuel side, but very different market.

So 2 points here, just to rephrase again is, we have minimum price guarantee in our contract. So very stable, very low risk on that sense. And we share some of the upside with our clients and the markets today are still above EUR 1,200 per cubic meter.

[Gabriel Coelho Barra, analyst]

Really clear. Mussa, if I may, just one follow-up here quickly on the first question. Should you feel like Raízen margins in Mobility Brazil closing the gap with the main competitors or we should see this margin keep it the same trend or in your focus on return, not only on margin, but this margin should close the gap or not in your point of view?

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

I think it always depends on the capital structure of each company. So in the end of the day, Barra, it's difficult to compare apples-to-apples, because we have -- we are focusing more on the return of the investment. So a light approach. But I think the trend for us, I think the most important message here that clearly the market has -- is going to a different level of margins, that's for sure. I've been talking about that for a long, long time. There is going to be fluctuation volatility on those margins because of the strategy of Petrobras on the pricing side. But I see healthier margins going ahead.

And in our case here, the focus is return. But also, we are going to improve our margins, and we expect to do that in the following quarters as we always do. So we are going to reduce our costs. So efficiency is a very important part of the game here. But for us, it's more important the return of the capital [indiscernible] here than the nominal margins. In the other day, is a return for the shareholder. That's the most important.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Mr. Luiz Carvalho from UBS.

[Luiz Carvalho, analyst]

I would like to address 2 quick points here. The first one is on the agricultural yield, I think that Carlos has already mentioned something on the presentation, but I would like to understand where do you see Raízen in terms of this journey, what kind of improvements should we expect for the next, let's say, year so? And also, I mean, we noticed a small drop on the CPA per ATR, which we were not expecting. So if you can give a bit more details on this front as well, that would be great.

And the second question is about capital allocation. You made some references on the end part of the presentation, talking about recycling portfolio. You put a slide on the tax monetization. And you mentioned about probably reshifting a bit the Power business. So just trying to get a bit more color on the capital allocation front, what are the priorities here?

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Luiz, thank you for the questions. On the yield side, let's go into the more short term. We already have -- if you're looking on the field today, we already have more than 85 million tons of sugar for this crop season. The real challenge now is to harvest everything. So it has been a phenomenal year. And for this particular year, the challenge no longer have the cane on the field, these to harvest, it depends on the El Niño. That's why we haven't put a final number yet. So we are -- as of today, we have reached already 76 million tonnes of crushing. So we are getting more and more comfortable towards the end of the crop. But it still depends on the weather to be able to harvest.

If you look what we did on the first crop, second crop. So the confidence level that we have right now that we fixed and we have something that can be sustainable and it's very high. So today, I have no doubt that, and the Board also do not have any doubt that we did a good job on recovering the productivity and just a matter of time now, the renewals. So as you can see, we have already fixed 65%, 2/3 next crop season should be around 75% to 80% and '25, '26 should be 100%.

So these we have to be careful on the numbers because it's also weather-related. So that's why our main target you see on the presentation is comparing to our suppliers. So first crop and second crop, and that's what you should expect. When we do a plan for the next year is we do not expect we always do normal weather, not better, not worse. That's how we made our plan for the next crop season. So you should expect to have a better yield for next year on normal weather. So that's -- and we can help you on finding the right number. But that's how we do our plan next step.

One thing that is happening to us is we are improving our irrigation process. So I think we are also reducing the risk of our agricultural yields moving ahead with what we have implemented so far. So I would also expect less volatility even with bad weather moving ahead. So we are very confident on the productivity. That's why we are looking in the benchmark in the market right now. We are on the first year on the first crop. So we're better than a lot of our competitors in the same regions comparing apples to apples. So this has, I think, is behind us now and it takes just a little bit more time to get the entire production.

I'll leave Carlos here to help on the CPA to give you a little bit more color on that and then I will go back on the capital allocation.

[Carlos Alberto de Moura, executive]

Thank you, Mussa. Good morning, Luiz. The evolution of the CPA per sugar equivalent was a reduction of 0.4% in this quarter. And if you pay attention for the leverage from the production, our production in sugar equivalent grew 12%. And why not to take more advantage of this operational leverage due to the sugarcane from third parties and land leasing, especially from the effect of the CONSECANA, and due to the higher value of the production, due to this market condition for sugar prices, naturally, the price of the CONSECANA reacted, and we have a lower effect of dilution than we could have.

However, we are in the same pace in terms of the reduction of sugar equivalent and maintaining our efficiency in our procurement areas and all of operations improving customer moving in transportation and you can see a strong reduction in connection with our operational leverage, and we expect to keep in the same pace going forward. But it's important to recognize the effect of the CONSECANA over our third-parties suppliers.

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

And looking to capital allocation, of course, our main priority, so the number one is productivity, so we are keeping our capital allocation to get our yield back. And the second one is E2G. So those 2 are something that we are not going to change any course on E2G and productivity gains. And what we are doing here, we still have plans on the recycling the portfolio, its in our plan for this year. It's half of the year for us. We still have 5 months ahead, 4 months now, 4.5 months ahead of us.

So we are working hard. I cannot give you the details of that. But it will not change the -- what I talked before, we are really focused on the renewables side business on growing that, especially second-generation ethanol and productivity yields on the field, and that's what has been delivered. But we're very disciplined on the capital allocation and -- so we do have an M&A team working hard to close the gap here on this year to deliver free cash flow positive by the end of the year.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Pedro Soares from BTG.

[Pedro Soares, analyst]

Yes, the first question I have, it's on a specific line of your working capital. Usually, this is a poor quarter, right, in terms of working capital, given the seasonality and the fact that it's a period that you guys, Raízen is often building inventories, right? But this time, you were still able to release a meaningful amount of working capital. It seems largely explained by advances from clients. So if you could provide a bit more color on this, whether it refers to volumes that struggle to be transported during the quarter, maybe some operating hiccups and whether these volumes have now already been sold or not?

And the second question, sort of a follow-up in order to better understand your cost dilution potential. But from a crushing strategy perspective, let's put it this way, given the yield improvements, right, that you have been delivering, it seems that the availability of sugarcane for this crop would be much higher than the 80 million tons implied in the company's expression guidance, right? So if you could touch base on the likelihood of -- for Raízen postponing part of this crushing potential for the next crop year and the reasons that supports that treasury would be appreciated as well.

[Carlos Alberto de Moura, executive]

Pedro, it's Carlos speaking. First, related to the working capital. As you know, we have our commitments about our capital structure. That's the first commandment is related to the maintenance of our investment grade sustaining a credential approach over our balance sheet. All in all, we use this instrument to operate with our clients due to our relationship and long-term connection to sustain our demand for working capital.

As you -- for example, we had lower level of imports of fuel in this quarter. We also have the decision to maintain our inventories of ethanol and to sustain all of the initiatives we need to have flexibility and exercise our optionalities. And this is something coherent with our history. We also have this kind of movements in several quarters, and we will continue to do so as much as we have or we consider necessary.

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

To your point here, Pedro. Ricardo Mussa here. The -- it really depends on weather. So if you look into our -- we are in the new year. That should be a lot of rain during our summer here in Brazil. That's why we are cautious yet on the crushing side, because we have the hardware. So all the bioenergy products already crush. We have a great crop in our hands. So it's really always depending on whether. So following the weather is the critical path here to get and how much is going to go into the next harvest in season.

Remember that some of our mills -- they also operate in March because they are in regions that normally are very dry in the March, especially in Mato Grosso do Sul, for instance. So we also expect some crushing to happen in March, not much, but still. So that's why it's difficult to say right now how much we're going to end up.

I think the difficult part we already did, and that's a good problem to have, right? So we are going to be in a very good position on a daily basis. Right now, if you look into the next few days in Brazil, still very dry. So we are taking advantage of that. But it depends on the weather on the first half of December and will the weather in March to establish if we can go to much higher numbers or not, okay.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Ms. Isabella Simonato from Bank of America.

[Isabella Simonato, analyst]

Sorry, I missed the beginning of the call, but I wanted to touch base a little bit more on the ethanol scenario in Brazil. I see that you guys are carrying over inventories, right? And even so you have a more diversified client base at the rest of the peers. We are seeing a lot of people carrying inventories on the expectation of better prices in the domestic market, right? So I wonder how you're guys seeing the demand dynamics specifically? And what would actually drive prices coming back to closer to the 70% parity to gasoline. I mean, what could indeed drive a better profitability of ethanol in Brazil specifically?

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Isabella, good question here. We are in a very good position to be vertically integrated to understand what's happening with the consumer at the end. So we are seeing the pickup on the consumption right now from the consumer base. The price differential at the pump today is above BRL 2 per liter, so that's very high. So it's driving more and more demand for ethanol.

So if you look into the parity that we have right now that is around 62%, 63%, that's very low. So only if you use -- it doesn't need to reach 70%, because it's only going to destroy demand above 70%, sometimes above 72%. So we are seeing that this demand of ethanol being very strong from now until -- and if you look into the numbers, how much is picking up, that's why we see the potential of better prices into the inter-harvest, because you have a price differential at least 10% to 15% more what we're seeing today is about just by closing the gap of the parity between ethanol and gasoline. So for us here, that's the scenario, right? It's what's the potential, and we are seeing at the pump consumption picking up right now.

More than that, we're also seeing more demand coming from the export sector. And remember about that we do have less than 20% of our volume is hydrous, and we do have a lot of industrial and the differential that we get on the price between the [indiscernible] price and what we're saying is very high, year-to-date is almost 30% higher. So we -- ethanol is -- it's something that we understand a lot. We know a lot about this bank we are reading, I think, the market very well. That's why -- but that's a risk in our plan, right? It depends on for some things that are not under our control.

But to our best understanding right now, there is a good reason to carry and selling the inter-harvest based on what we are seeing in the market today and the potential outside and the potential upside -- much more potential upside than downside as we see right now, Isabella.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Mr. Alejandro Demichelis from Jefferies.

[Alejandro Anibal Demichelis, analyst]

A quick question on E2G, please. Could you please -- you have some end point as of how you're seeing discussions for long-term E2G contracts for the next phase of plants that you aim to build?

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Could you repeat, Jeff, it was cut off a little bit. Could you repeat?

[Alejandro Anibal Demichelis, analyst]

Yes, sorry. The question is on the E2G front. If you could give us some indications on how you're seeing discussions for long-term contracts for the next wave of plants that you aim to build?

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Great. Thank you, Alejandro. Sorry to [indiscernible]. What we have right now, the demand is still very strong. So as I told you, the question for our clients is that when you talk about Plant # 11, 12, 13, they are really down the road of '29, 2030 and they need the product earlier. So the discussion that we're going to have inside our companies, if we are able not to anticipate the construction to deliver that. If we still have demand for long-term contracts more than we can afford. So right now for us is a question of balance sheet and execution and risk management on our construction side. But we haven't seen any change on the demand side for our clients for long term.

I'll give some examples. We do have one negotiation for 5 plants in a row, for connected sustainable aviation fuel, for instance, and that's between 12- to 15-year contract. So those are the type of discussions that we have right now. And the major challenge for us is to do to deliver earlier, because if you look into our schedule right now, it's getting more down the road. That's why it's important to follow the ramp-up of the Bonfim plant, they start up for the next 2 plants next year and getting our balance sheet better to even speed up the construction.

But demand side hasn't changed. What we are seeing is sustainable aviation fuel creating additional demand and also the chemical space creating a lot of additional demand. So it hasn't changed the market that as we see for E2G and again, the client wanting secure supply for the long term. So that hasn't changed as even the same or a little bit better than we were before.

I was to give an example, Alejandro, I was in Japan 2 weeks ago, very good discussions on very different fronts related to E2G for long-term contracts with markets like Japan, Europe, in particular, and also something to U.S. But it remains the same.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Gustavo Sadka from Bradesco BBI.

[Gustavo Sadka, analyst]

My first question about sugar inventories. The company ended the quarter with 2.5 million tons of sugar inventories, which was significantly higher year-over-year. Could you give us some color what is the breakdown of these inventories between own and third-party sugar? And even in third-party sugar can we expect trading gains regarding the prices that you guys settle?

And on fuel distribution, we see the import parity open again, the import window open again, could we expect a high yield of the imports now in this third quarter of the harvest year? And also, could you comment on the impact that high imports would have on working capital, especially on days of payables?

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Thank you, Gustavo, for the questions. So to your sugar inventory questions, 100% Raízen's inventory of carry third-party, so it's 100% ours. It's all our strategy of sales is related to our client base. Remember that we are really going to a final destination and also the prices on the market, New York 11. So it's just the logistics now to -- you see that we have very low risk on price right now on sugar for this crop season.

If we do manage to harvest more, then we can capture a higher upside, because the short-term price are much better than the long-term prices. So it's important to us to focus on harvesting as much as we can and producing as much sugar as we can. We do have great logistics to export. So we are not seeing a huge challenge on that sense. And everything is down to weather here, Gustavo, for that one.

On the Mobility, you're right, the import parity is open. So we are looking very closely how our major supplier, Petrobras, is going to behave. We have taken the decision to be close to Petrobras as much as we can. They have been a very great partner and supplier. Of course, we have no limits to import. So it also depends on having the best sourcing. But this is also related to our strategy. We cannot open here, how we are going to do it. But we, on the long run, we are more close to Petrobras. I think that's the right strategy.

But we'll be very focused on supplying the right molecule at the short, the lowest possible price. So we have a great trading team great logistics to import, and we're going to guarantee the best molecule to our network as always. But I cannot share here, Gustavo, sorry, our strategy, how we're going to move ahead but we are very close to Petrobras.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The Q&A section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Ricardo Mussa for his final remarks.

[Ricardo Aquila Mussa, executive]

Thank you, everyone, for all the questions. It was a great recovery on the second quarter. Very here -- we are very happy with the results, especially on the agriculture productivity. We are really delivering what we promised, and we're very confident on the next months and next years. We are seeing, as I said, improvement on the margins on fuels. I really believe it's going to be a new level of margins, some volatility, of course, moving ahead with a new level. But also very happy with the execution of the team, especially the Shell brand and what we promised to our network and how the network is growing.

Overall, I wish you guys a very good end of the year. I know we were not going to talk by Christmas time. So next call, we're probably going to be celebrating a very good quarter. So hopefully, we can have a very good debate next time. So wish you guys a very good end of the year and Merry Christmas, I know it's very early, but that's the time that I have to talk to you guys. So thank you, and take care.

[Operator]

The Raízen S.A. second quarter of the 2023, '24 crop year conference call is concluded. The Investor Relations department is available to answer further questions you may have. Thank you, and have a good afternoon.