Bitter days ahead for sugar as investors line up for 2019 losses

Cane millers can turn crops into either sweetener or biofuel. For a lot of 2018, high gasoline prices meant Brazilian processors favored making ethanol, helping to cap the sugar glut

Sugar is ending 2018 on a bitter note on signs that a price collapse could get even worse next year.
 
Futures have slumped 17 per cent this year, a second straight annual loss, as booming global production sparked a supply glut. The one thing that kept the rout from being even deeper: robust demand for ethanol in Brazil, the world’s biggest sugar grower and exporter. But now that backstop looks like it’s going away.
 
Cane millers can turn crops into either sweetener or biofuel. For a lot of 2018, high gasoline prices meant Brazilian processors favored making ethanol,