Sao Martinho SA

BOVESPA:SMTO3

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Welcome to Sao Martinho S.A.'s Conference Call to discuss the results referring to Q3 of 2024, 2025 Crop Year.

Participating in this event are Mr. Felipe Vicchiato, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer and the IR team. The audio and slides of this conference call are being broadcast simultaneously over the Internet on www.saomartinho.com.br/ir. Participants may choose the language that they want to hear the presentation in. At the upper part of the screen, there are 2 tabs with the options for languages. [Operator Instructions]

We highlight that some information contained in this conference call may include forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, both known and unknown, and uncertainties that can make those expectations not to materialize or to be materially different from what was expected.

I would like to turn the floor to Mr. Felipe Vicchiato, who will start the conference call. Mr. Vicchiato, go ahead.

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us in Sao Martinho's conference call relating to Q3.

Let us start the presentation on Page 3. Here, we have the agenda that we are proposing for this conference call. We'll start talking about production in the crop year, the end of the crop year for corn that should happen this month. Financial highlights, margins by product, our cash costs, trading, corn operations, prices for sugar and lastly, ethanol market.

Well, we ended the crop year now in mid-December. We will be very much impacted by the fires that happened in the month of August. As we mentioned in the material fact published and we talked a little about this in the prior period. In a nutshell, there was a drop in crushing by -- the drop by 5%. Yield dropped by 7%, ending at 79 tons per hectare. TRS, total recoverable sugar was better than the past crop year. So we had a TRS, it as was 1.6% below compared to last year.

The volume of corn processing on the other hand, it really well. We went through the commissioning phase last year. And this year, we are operating at full capacity. To date until the end of December, we had processed 42,000 tons of corn, 21% higher than the previous year, and we should be ending within the guidance, close to 500,000 tons until the end of this month.

Produced TRS improved even further than corn processing itself given better efficiency in converting corn into ethanol. In the final production date, we have here a reduction in sugar production, down 9%, starting with 1,400 tons last year to 1,300 tons, and this is basically due to the fires that happened in August. We had to produce a lot more ethanol than we had imagined because we just could not produce sugar. And there was a problem with the crystallization and a number of things. So our ethanol increased a bit, up 8.9% compared to last year, of which 6% is sugar, ethanol is for now 27% growth of corn ethanol, but this number should be higher when we end the corn harvest.

Now moving to the next slide, we have the financial highlights for the quarter. We have a summary in like-for-like for EBITDA, EBIT and net income. This is a quarter where we evolved our sales of sugar and ethanol in the TRS equivalent by close to 12%. When we break it down and look at what product evolved more, it was ethanol, we sold 32% more. Part of that because of the corn plant, partly because of the higher production of ethanol that we are having at the sugar mills.

Average price was 12% better than in the prior quarter, which led us to an ethanol revenue that increased a lot. Sure, but because of the schedule and mostly because of the low production itself, we were estimating a much higher production, and this had an impact in this quarter with a lower volume than we had forecast.

Looking at the financial indicators, we see adjusted or normalized EBITDA, excluding tax credit ending at -- ending 23% higher than last year, and in the EBIT, line also normalizing net of tax credit effect to have a growth of 29% year-on-year. So despite all the fires and so on and so forth, quarter-on-quarter, we were able to improve our operating results.

As regards to the net income, of course, we had an effect of the tax credit. And that was totally offset by a mark-to-market swap of debt that we took at inflation plus 5% against the CDI. And when we mark-to-market the swap, there is a direct impact in the quarter, but there's no cash effect. The cash effect occurs only at the end of the operation. And at the end of the day, this operation is going to cause Sao Martinho, something close to 104%, 105% of CDI.

In addition, there was mark of biological assets above last year of around BRL 25 million. No cash effect there, but this marketing is redly linked to the fire because we -- we apply more fertilizes and crop protection to improve the next crop year. And when we mark the crops to market, there is a loss. But in terms of net income, there was a reduction of about 10% quarter-on-quarter.

Moving on now to the margin and the cash cost of ethanol and sugar until the end of the 9 months, 2025, we have a sugar cost of dropping 1.9% in the year-on-year comparison. And part of that is explained by the Consecana drop. Since they have higher prices, we have an improvement in the margin in the 9 months of '25 compared to 9 months of '24. In the case of ethanol, we had an increase of about 8% in the cash cost. Half of this increase is due to the Consecana price because the ethanol price increased in the year-on-year comparison.

And the other part is due to the cost increase of inputs, a greater dilution of the heaviest costs for ethanol because you see when there is a fire and productivity starts dropping, in their impurities since that sugarcane with a lower yield is being processed to become ethanol, the cost of ethanol is impacted by this lower yield sugarcane. The yield in some weeks was very different. So there was an increase of 8% in the cash cost. We have a margin close to 0 in the year-to-date ethanol for next year, and we're going to speak more about that momentarily. We expect the ethanol cost to drop a lot if we think about a more normalized harvest and without the effect of all of the fires.

Here, we have our trading strategy and what we've done so far. To date, we sold 81% of the sugar volume, 19% is sold in the last quarter. The strategy before the fires was, we mentioned that we were going to sell 30% of the volume in the last quarter. But since we lost something close to 150,000 tons of sugar, so in the 9 months, we sold more than 80% of the volume.

The same rationale applies to sugarcane ethanol, but the opposite. We have invoiced 69% and there is 31% still to be sold to be invoiced in the last quarter. Fortunately, the last quarter is showing a very constructive scenario for ethanol. So we should have better prices for sugarcane ethanol.

Corn ethanol, we have invoiced 54%. So we have 45%, 46% to be sold in the last quarter, only in that corn-ethanol is basically in hydrous ethanol with a better margin than sugarcane ethanol, so we should Q4 with a strong result for corn ethanol. We put it all together, we sold 72% and of TRS and the rest, we intend to sell and to invoice to convert into cash by March.

Speak a little about the corn operations performance. We had a strong reversal of the corn results compared to last year for a number of reasons actually. First, the corn price in our results is 20% lower than last year. DDGS price is slightly better than last year, and the ethanol price is better. And lastly, of course, the operation is now starting to operate at full steam. We have strong results for corn from minus 16 EBITDA to more than BRL 129 million year-to-date, and we have almost half of the volume of ethanol to be sold in 1 single quarter.

To date, the operating highlights are we have 41% of corn to ethanol conversion. And this is what improved the produced TRS vis-a-vis the crushing. We understand that there's still room to improve this number in the coming years and the whole team is working in that direction.

And coverage. Revenues from co-products, oil DDGS compared to the cost of corn, the coverages is of around 40%. Our hedge for corn to be processed in the next crop season, 151,000 tons of corn hedged at a price of BRL 53 per bag net of taxes. It is a lower price than we had in our results regarding the cost of corn. And this number is sufficient for us to start the plant, the mill in April, and it will have the flexibility and freedom to make a decision to buy corn at the moment when safrinha has a production cut in mid-June.

Now speak a little about our sugar price evolution and hedge. We have something close to half of the volume forecast for sugar exports next year. This is relative to our own claim with the price which is in keeping with our own team this year to 600 to 550. And we have a good price for sugar expected, it should improve in the future, and it is 50% hedged.

And lastly, to open the floor to questions. We have the ethanol market. Ethanol has been improving a lot this year with the auto cycle going back to 26%. We got apparently close to 68% and with a very good demand still. And we have in this month, in February, we have a number of positive news. There is a higher demand for ethanol in the next -- for the next crop year.

The first item in the market updates, we have the increase in the ICMS and gasoline and this brings better competitiveness for ethanol. Starting in February, there is a single-phase taxation of PIS/COFINS taxes that should start now in May. It is just PIS/COFINS for -- in anhydrous, anhydrous ethanol. So we have better competitiveness for hydrous ethanol.

And lastly, E30, which is expected to begin in a 30% of in anhydrous ethanol and gasoline. This is in the final test phase for this product to be approved. And this gives us an additional demand between 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion liters, which will offset the entry of new volumes of corn-based ethanol coming from the plants that are -- that will be ready in the end of March.

So this is kind of a summary of the quarter, and we will now open the floor for questions. Let's start the Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Gustavo Troyano from Itau BBA.

[Gustavo Troyano, analyst]

In fact, I have 2 questions. My first question is about your crushing expectation in the mid-south -- this is the beginning of the season with a lot of rain, so there was a deceleration. I would just like to understand what changed in your expectation in terms of crushing for this crop year, whether if you could talk a little bit about the development or the establishment of the sugarcane area. And if you give me some overview.

Also, if you can tell me a little bit about the potential caused by the fires, whether you have some way to measure the impact of the fires comparing the last fall to this fall?

And the other question is about CapEx, your expectation in terms of capital allocation. Given the current interest rate scenarios, I would like to have some idea about your CapEx and how are you going to prioritize your projects? And what could we expect for the next crop season '25, '26. I just want to get an update on your capital allocation.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you for your questions. In terms of the Center South crop year, we still had 2 months of rains. We expect 2 months of rain until the beginning of the next crop year. Therefore, it's difficult for us to give you any analysis about the overall scenario. There are market reports from Datagro and others that are usually very assertive when it comes to sugarcane crushing and yield.

With time, once they look at the weather conditions, whether there will be more or less rain, they update their views. But today, the best information from Datagro itself -- I mean, we don't necessarily share 100% of it, but it's around 600,000 tons. Our crushing for next year, we are still building the budget, and the numbers should be available in early April. So I hope I can talk about it next time we have our material factor.

But the fact is that the crushing base is low and also sugar production has been low, given the fires. Unfortunately, we made all the necessary investments. So our sugar crop is 100% ready for the next crop year. And so we're very excited.

In fact, I mean, there was good rainfall in the crops. It rained a lot at night. There was sunshine during the day. Climate was quite favorable for the establishment of the crops in our units. Therefore, we are mostly concentrated in the region around [indiscernible] we have a little bit of cane in Piracicaba in some cane in the state of Goya's.

But in our case, given all the investments we did in the past few years in terms of irrigation, trades, our sugar crop -- sugarcane crop is well established, so as to reach full capacity -- full crushing capacity.

[Fabio Venturelli, executive]

Gustavo, in terms of cost, we will have something -- I mean, ballpark figure, around BRL 100 million of additional cost that we wouldn't have if we weren't for the fires, BRL 100 million is distribute into crop treatment and other areas that have to be replanted or areas that needed additional fertilizers in the planted area. And also industrial inputs. Because once you take that burned cane, if you -- I mean if you do not use industrial inputs to be able to extract something out of that cane, your yield will be even lower than what it was.

Therefore, we capture that once we crush the cane. So that will be around BRL 100 million. And then the other BRL 200 million or BRL 250 million is basically arbitration that we didn't do because I mean we do not produce sugar. But on the other hand, we produce more ethanol. And you have to do that with market price even before the fires occurred. We look at sugar prices on August 20, and what was the ethanol price at the same date. So we did some quick math, and we arrived at about BRL 250 million that you did not invoice because of the fire.

So BRL 350 million is a ballpark figure in terms of a lower cash generation for the company. For '25, '26, we were able to make adjustments to 0 out the impact of the fires. The CapEx pipeline, given this new landscape of interest rates, we had already exhausted this year, all of the relevant CapEx for projects. We had already announced it and it was underway.

I mean a 2-row harvester, biomethanes, et cetera. And this is being concluded now. The CapEx for next year only involves maintenance CapEx, and this could be around BRL 2 billion approximately. And maybe some other things that will spill over from 1 year to the next. I will have last CapEx this year, but next crop year, there will be a rollout probably. But this is our maintenance CapEx.

Any other project we have to evaluate it at a light of the new interest rate scenarios and return rates. Of course, we have to have a higher premium for the projects, but we are still analyzing it. Maybe the main project is to double the size of the Boa Vista plant. We talked about this project during our last earnings release call. We are already looking at the engineering design and this decision to start it should be in early March. But given all of the scenarios, I think we would need a little bit more -- some other aspects like lower price of ethanol or higher sugar, et cetera, just to cover for that price.

[Operator]

Next question from Pedro Gama from Citi.

[Pedro Gama, analyst]

First of all, I would like to hear your opinion in terms of what are you expecting for next crop year in terms of the ethanol market? You said that maybe there should be an increase in your margin in the next harvest? Or maybe you may change the mix depending on the raw material.

And with that, maybe the ethanol offering, and cane-based ethanol should be reduced by 2 million liters, and that should be offset by the increase in anhydrous ethanol. But the demand for ethanol should be up by 1.5 million. Having said that, should we consider that ethanol prices should increase in the short to midterm to cater to the demand? And do you believe that this could be -- the ethanol should be up 5%?

And the second question is about the sugar market. I think this market is very volatile once we've heard that there will be new exports coming from India. So my question is whether you would adjust your position. It does it make sense for you for the market to be at that level, I mean all the Center South considering it to be more positive. And I would like you to remind us about the cost for the product in the Center South of the country.

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Thank you for your questions. The off-season ethanol market. And when I refer to off-season, it will be up to the end of March. We think that, that could reached 70%, but I don't think it will go any further than that, even though the cane season is over, we still have the corn season in progress. And this season, those in the market, a relevant amount of ethanol. So we do not think that it will be anything beyond 70%. But at the end of the season, it should be close to 70%.

But since this tax change is something recent in terms of ICMS, the impact of that or the pump takes a while. I mean, their distributors have inventory, therefore, we believe there will be a 15-day delay until you can see the full impact at the gas station, at the pump. So after the impact, you already have a productivity gain of approximately BRL 100 per cubic meter, and that could be an important avenue to improve productivity or the productivity of ethanol.

For the next season, I mean you're right. I mean your math is something that we looked at, even though there are some additional more corn-based ethanol, there will still be an ethanol based on sugarcane because they invested in crystallization in sugar in the past few years, and they are probably migrating towards a production of more sugar. If we look -- I think the price would be 25% higher than ethanol. Given that, I think this season will be mostly sugarcane based.

And finally, referring to India, I mean there is the announcement that India will increase its export quota. This doesn't necessarily mean that the exports will be materialized because the crop season was very difficult in India. It was even worse than what we expected. And even though, I mean, the quota is open, we do not have an idea of the volume yet. We have to wait a bit and see what will happen, but we think that these current sugar prices that I would say -- I mean, $0.09 will be in the shorter window.

But if you look at the next 3 windows, they are talking about an average of $17.5. $17.50 is certainly way above the production cost of India, and also above Brazil's production cost in some units. I think the production cost in Brazil ranges around $0.15 to $0.16 approximately.

[Operator]

Next question from Matheus Enfeldt with UBS.

[Matheus Enfeldt, analyst]

I want to get into the discussion about corn ethanol, the projects out there in the market and what you are considering. I am not going to ask you what the IRR of the project you're thinking is. But let me learn about the resilience of these projects when we see perhaps an oversupply of corn or perhaps crop breaking in the South or the Midwest, which would drive up the price of corn.

So my question is what are you thinking in terms of approving a project in this scenario? How do you calculate the resilience of the project? When we think about oil companies, oil companies are saying, we won a project with a low breakeven, but perhaps the corn project will have a tight breakeven. Some projects with 20% or low double digits. So I just want to know about the resilience of the plan of the project for the company. How are you thinking about this rather than a target internal rate of return based on the past expectations that we or the market has?

My second question is I want to provocative regarding the hedge. The sugar price has been very volatile, and this has translated into great volatility in terms of expectation of results. The hedge improved a lot for the 2025-'26 crop year relatively high level. But what are you thinking about hedge operations looking forward? Is there a room? Is there a need to adjust the hedge policy to hedge more or less? How are you thinking about hedge in terms of process, given the data that we have seen in the past few years.

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Thank you for the question. Let me start with the second question. Regarding volatility, sugar volatility has always been so. There is nothing new there. I've been with the company for almost 20 years and every year, there's something new. There is something that happens and the price floats. So it's something that we are quite used to having. This is part of business for us.

So we have a hedge policy through which we basically work with a scenario brought to us by the commercial team, a scenario of the subsequent crop year, 12 months before the crop year begins. And this scenario is always updated monthly with the help of our committees and our Board of Directors. When we have a downward scenario with an expected oversupply of sugar, we have a hedge percentage that needs to be achieved until a certain math. When we are in a more upward scenario, this percentage drop, we see a deceleration of the hedge.

So I would say that today, with the 50% we have hedged in December, we have a neutral scenario. Neutral means that I mean that for March -- from February to March, I should be advancing at least about 10 percentage points compared to what I have today. Because we have a scenario of a lot of uncertainties. So we do a coupled hedge, sugar and the dollar. The U.S. dollar, of course, excluding all dollar denominated expenses, crop protection, fertilizers, perhaps a debt denominated in the foreign currency.

So we do a coupled operation with our commercial areas. So it's -- this is what we're thinking, 50%, perhaps increasing to another -- increasing another 10 percentage points by March. If the scenario remains unchanged. But you see India is very relevant about this, it moves the needle. If it is confirmed that India will have a lower crop year. If there's a confirmation that the India crop season is moving from sucrose to ethanol as we were expecting that will lead them to export sugar and sugar can quickly respond to that.

Now to answer your first question. of the Boa Vista project, I will try to be brief in my answer. The main inputs for us to have the project greenlighted or not would be prices of corn, DDGS price, of course, the ethanol price. And of course, the price holds of the raw material, the chips, wood chips. And depending on where we're going to locate the plants, we have to see the logistics discount.

If you have a project in the north of Mato Grosso state, if the market cannot absorb all the output from the project. There's an oversupply or whatever the reason is, you have to make a decision. You either export or you develop the market more that if the market has a very low share of ethanol or you send the ethanol to Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. And if you do that, if you move the ethanol to Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo there is shipping expense which can be very relevant.

Our plant in the south of Goias two big advantages. Number one, shipping, because we don't have to bring the ethanol to Sao Paulo. We have quite a significant market in Minas Gerai. We can serve the market there, so there is no such discount. And the second big advantage is the need for biomass. And for that, we will use the same gas that I now use for my boilers to produce sugar and corn ethanol. I'll have that enough to make the second phase of corn ethanol.

If it weren't for that, if we needed to buy wood chips in the region, the additional cost would be BRL 250 per cubic meter and the logistics cost if in Mato Grosso and we have to move the product to South of Brazil that would cost BRL 300 per cubic meter. So these are the 2 big advantages that we have that relatively protect us.

If you think about the price of corn. Despite the corn price not dropping given the crop year in the United States. The long-term view, for where we are located Mato Grosso and Goias of course, the expectation is that we'll have an increase in the availability of corn in the region because we have more soybean more safrinha corn. And we think that the corn available in the region will be fair and the corn will be more or less competitive depending on how you can address the logistics involved.

And for the logistics, we see that in Brazil, the logistics costs increased much more than inflation. If we have to move corn to the South to the port to export, this will entail labor cost, diesel cost and the price can increase a lot, the logistics cost, I mean. So these are kind of the drivers the levers. And of course, there is 1 lever, which I did not mention, which is the funding.

Sao Martinho has access to funding with a good tenure and a good price, which helps fund the project. So these are the drivers that will help us decide whether we are going to greenlight the project in the future or not.

[Operator]

Your next question from Julia Zaniolo from Bank of America.

[Julia Zaniolo, analyst]

Looking again at corn-based ethanol, we noticed that you increased procurement. But the price of corn I mean was around 25% more. So there is an expectation of risk for the off-season between planting and soybean harvest. So I just want to understand what do you have in mind now? And what kind of expectation you have in terms of corn prices and how this could impact your projections for corn-based ethanol?

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Julia, thank you for your questions. In the Goias region where most of our corn is originated. We have approximately 15 basis points lower than the pricing in Campinas. So when you look at Campinas today and you're looking at futures for July for delivery in July, out of that 15 basis corn will be around BRL 60 per bag when compared to corn BRL 55, which was in the results.

So the way things are today, if I were to hedge through BMF, I would get a price of only 10% in relation to what was passed. But we are monitoring it, and we see that in the region, even though there are risks, depending on the rainfall, et cetera, we believe that by July and August, there will be a significant volume. So prices would probably converge back to BRL 55.

[Operator]

Next question from Henrique Brustolin from Bradesco BBI.

[Henrique Brustolin, analyst]

I have 2 questions. My first question goes back to production costs, and I think you also mentioned that during the presentation. When we look at the progress broken down sugar and ethanol, 9 months versus 6 months. We saw a relevant growth in both cases in this quarter.

I would just like to understand what was this delta? What you showed in terms of costs last quarter in this current quarter, accumulating the seasons, I think that there is an important aspect related to the fires. And what should we consider for the next crop season of '25, '26. This is my first question.

My second question speaking about corn-based ethanol, could you please tell us a bit about the DDG dynamic? There is a lot of offer. I mean, there is a lot of supply in terms of corn-based ethanol. Historically, there is a large correlation with soybean meal. I just want to know whether you see this performing well or whether there has been a larger discount with this new project considering what you saw in the market more recently.

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Thank you for your questions. Production cost -- when we compare the first thing is that we made some adjustments in the corn-based ethanol to have more clarity in terms of our production costs. I don't know if you noticed. But what happened is that once we look at the cash cost. The math was what would be my realized CapEx in that period, quarter or half year, what was the cash, then we would take the CapEx and turned it into a unit cost for both ethanol and sugar.

And then what happened, depending on the CapEx schedule, you had an unusual cost movement. And this wouldn't be the case at the end of the year. And moreover, there was something very critical that occurs in sugarcane, whereas 40% of my maintenance CapEx is spent at the last quarter, 60% then occurs in the 9 months. In this distorted the information even more.

In order to clarify the understanding, we look at what would be the CapEx for the entire year. So this year is BRL 1.5 billion, something like that. And then we said, okay, given the TRS volumes sold until now and also considering the final CapEx for the year, what will be the unit cost per quarter? And this was done in order to dilute this distortion.

So when you look at 6 months and 9 months numbers might be distorted. But it was just a matter of putting things in order. And this better -- it reflects better the cash cost on a quarterly basis without distortions given the nature of sugar. And then when you look at the schedule and the way to present it, so we have the industrial cost and the fires.

The second dynamic referring to DDG. In fact, here, there is a large volume of DDG coming in. But I think the highest impact of prices was already felt in this crop season in the initial project, we estimated that DDG prices will be around BRL 1,200, but it is now actually BRL 1,000. The biggest competitor of DDG are projects related closer to our mills.

New projects that are in the pipeline are located in the Mato Grosso region. And then the challenge is the same as the challenge that we have with ethanol, then we have to bring that DDG to the region. And that means that we have to spend with freight. But DDG is a market that is still being developed in Brazil.

When you look at the use of DDG, there isn't that much use, and I think the company's, larger companies in Brazil and FFS, they are working hard to develop this market. And at the end of the day, it's just a matter of expanding the market. Therefore, we believe that the numbers will be very close to soybean prices.

In the U.S., for instance, where they have a much higher volume, I think the ceiling would be for it to be very similar to corn prices, DDG close to corn prices by comparing things to the U.S., that's what happens. But this is reality in Brazil because we still have a lot of things to develop in our local market of DDG.

[Operator]

Next question from [indiscernible] with BTG Pactual.

[Unknown Analyst]

I have only 1 question. I would like to understand how you see the crystallization CapEx in the industry right now? We have been saying that we can make more money with sugar than with ethanol right now. But do you see any CapEx related to increased crystallization. And with the current premium for sugar and ethanol, does this kind of investment makes sense? Is it necessary to invest in order to have more attractive returns?

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Thank you for the question. We right now are not seeing additional investments in crystallization. The bulk of the investment happened 2 years ago, about 2 years ago. And we believe that given the investments already made today the crystallization capacity in Brazil in the South and Midwest of Brazil would be to produce 43 million, 44 million tons if we have like a super crop here. But we currently have no further crystallization projects.

In the past, we analyzed a crystallization project at Boa Vista, which is a plant where we can have this kind of project because all of the others, the plants in Sao Paulo are at 70% crystallization capacity after the investments made. For Boa Vista, it's only ethanol. We could make an investment there because we would have an important volume of sugar, but it really didn't make sense, financially speaking.

Because when we make an investment in crystallization, we are basically investing in idle capacity because we're going to use the same graph to make sugar, and we'll leave the ethanol plant idle, and it is sitting there with capital invested already. Even with the ethanol price is even lower than they are currently, it wouldn't be advantageous to make an investment in the sugar plant.

Now for Boa Vista, all the sugarcane ethanol mills in the Midwest have something which is unique, which is produced in produce year that will end in 2022. When produce year ends, perhaps the calculation will change. But until then, I don't see anyone making investments in crystallization. If they have made investments, they are done. They are made, but no new ones will come.

[Operator]

Thank you. We are ending the Q&A session. I will turn the floor now back to Mr. Felipe Vicchiato for his final statements.

[Felipe Vicchiato, executive]

Well, thank you very much for joining us today in this conference call. And I hope to have you on board in the next earnings call. It should be in mid-June, given that my fiscal year ends in March.

Any additional questions you might have or are available, myself and the whole team. Thank you very much. Have a great week.

[Operator]

The Sao Martinho conference call has come to an end. We would like to thank everyone for participating. Have a great afternoon.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]