Boa tarde, senhoras e senhores. Sejam bem-vindos à teleconferência da Jalles, durante a qual serão discutidos os resultados do quarto trimestre da safra 2024/2025. Este evento está sendo gravado e conta com tradução simultânea para o inglês. Ambas as gravações estarão disponíveis no website da empresa, no endereço ri.jalles.com. Todos os participantes estão conectados apenas como ouvintes, e ao final da apresentação será aberta a sessão de perguntas e respostas, quando serão dadas as instruções de como participar. Como o tempo deste evento é limitado, eventuais perguntas não respondidas serão endereçadas posteriormente pela área de RI da companhia. O release de resultados e a apresentação do quarto trimestre da safra 2024/2025 também podem ser acessados no site de relações com investidores da companhia e da CVM.
Antes de prosseguir, gostaria de esclarecer que eventuais declarações que possam ser feitas durante esta videoconferência relativas às perspectivas dos negócios constituem-se em previsões baseadas nas atuais expectativas da administração. Essas expectativas estão sujeitas a mudanças em função das condições macroeconômicas, riscos de mercado e outros fatores. Conosco hoje, conduzindo a videoconferência, estão os senhores Otávio Lage de Siqueira Filho, Diretor-Presidente, e Rodrigo Pena de Siqueira, Diretor Financeiro e de Relações com Investidores. Agora, gostaria de passar a palavra ao senhor Otávio. Por favor, senhor Otávio, pode prosseguir.
Obrigado, Amanda, Paulo. Cumprimentar aqui o nosso Diretor Financeiro de RI, Rodrigo Pena, toda a nossa equipe aqui participando, da área financeira, da área de RI. Agradecer a todos os bancos, a todos os investidores, a todos que estão participando dessa conferência. É muito bom a gente ter essa parceria com todos, né? A gente agradece pela confiança, agradecemos a Deus por tudo que temos conquistado aí ao longo da vida da nossa empresa, né? Começamos lá nos idos de 1980, final de 1980, e este ano estaremos aí comemorando 45 anos aí de existência, né? Primeira safra em 1983, e nesse período todo, né, passamos por momentos difíceis, momentos onde enfrentamos aí turbulências, né? Então nós já estamos aí acostumados ao longo da nossa história, né, dessas ocorrências, né?
A gente que está aqui desde o início, a gente participou e passou por essas dificuldades que, né, são quem está no negócio, quem está na empresa, tem que estar preparado para isso. O que a gente tem que fazer, que a gente sempre procurou fazer, tomar as decisões para ajustar o percurso, né? Como fizemos no ano passado a fábrica de açúcar da Santa Vitória, né, que apesar de ter iniciado tarde, né, ajudou o resultado a não ser tão ruim como foi, né? Mas o mix nosso poderia ter sido melhor, né, da produção de açúcar. Na UOL também, a unidade Otávio Lage, tivemos também pouco menor do que a gente gostaria, porque fizemos investimentos para melhorar o nosso mix para açúcar, e aí o atraso na implantação ocorreu que diminuiu pouco a nossa programação do mix para açúcar.
Tivemos aí iniciativas interessantes, né, que nós temos feito na área de ampliação da área irrigada, investimento para mitigar o risco que acontece, né, e aconteceu ano passado, que atrapalhou também nosso resultado pouco, que foi a seca intensa, né? E também uma questão da cana ter sentido, né, essa seca, e a nossa capacidade de produção de açúcar ficou pouco afetada por essa murcha que tivemos aí na nossa cana de açúcar. Tivemos aí uma negociação muito interessante, já para abrir novos mercados, diversificar mais uma coisa que a companhia sempre procurou fazer, diversificar sua produção, que é a produção do biometano. Já tínhamos aí a produção do biogás em parceria com Albioma, e estreitamos mais essa parceria para que ano que vem nós tenhamos aí também o biometano.
Haja visto o interesse aqui das companhias que fazem o transporte de passageiros lá em Goiânia e toda aquela região da Grande Goiânia, né? Há uma demanda de 500 homens que vão ser comprados de biometano, então nós estamos sendo assediados aí para que a produção aconteça e nós vamos, junto com o Bioma, fazer com que isso aconteça para o ano que vem. Nós já acertamos o contrato, já acertamos a negociação, ano que vem teremos novo produto. Nossa fé no nosso setor é muito grande, porque a gente vê o potencial do álcool, do etanol, na transição energética, né? Então a gente acredita muito que é para os navios não poluírem, para que os aviões não usem combustível como querosene, né, que polui bastante, que nós teremos aí grande mercado nos próximos anos.
E isso vai acontecer, nós estamos vendo aí os movimentos, o Brasil vai ser grande player, grande produtor de todos esses combustíveis nessa transição energética para atender a aviação e também a marinha mercante. Então a gente está muito animado, muito entusiasmado, e esperamos que essas turbulências que passamos agora, elas vão embora e que a gente possa voltar a sorrir, voltar a ver os nós melhores. Então, Rodrigo vai apresentar todos esses números, nós queríamos só fazer essa abertura e agradecer mais uma vez a confiança, a parceria de todos que estão participando aí desse momento. Uma boa tarde a todos e uma boa conferência. Rodrigo, com você.
Obrigado, Otávio. Obrigado aí pela apresentação. Boa tarde a todos, né? Prazer estar aqui de novo, né, fazendo mais call de resultados, esse do encerramento da safra 2024/2025, 4T25, e a gente gostaria de, começando aqui, né, reforçar o convite aí para o Jalles Day, que vai acontecer na semana que vem, né? Nós vamos fazer lá em Santa Vitória, né, que é ativo que nós adquirimos há dois anos e meio já, né, e que todo mundo tem uma curiosidade de conhecer, então é uma chance boa, né, de conhecer a unidade e o trabalho que nós estamos fazendo por lá. Bom, nós vamos passar aqui a apresentação, vamos fazer uma visão de mercado rápida, os destaques aí operacionais, comerciais e financeiros da safra, cuja produção, projeto de biometano e o guidance que nós soltamos, né, o fato relevante ontem à noite, falar pouquinho desse guidance.
Visão de mercado, né, a gente falando primeiro aqui de açúcar, a gente vê aí que na 2025/2026, esses dados são da Datagro, né, e a gente percebe que já na 2025/2026 nós vamos ter superávit de açúcar, né, a gente vinha de déficit, né, mas com estoque, a relação de estoque-consumo ainda em níveis baixos em relação aos últimos 10, 12 anos, né, então a gente ainda está num patamar de estoque baixo, mas com cenário de uma oferta maior de açúcar. E a gente tem até visto, né, a tela voltando, né, agora a importância, né, da nossa política de hedge, né, para esses momentos, né, com o açúcar voltando, e por que, né, que nós vamos ter superávit, né?
Para o ano que vem, se estima, né, nessa próxima safra, que a Índia vai sair dos 26 milhões de toneladas que teve nessa safra passada para 31,6, é uma recuperação para os níveis normais de Índia, né? O ano passado eles tiveram uma quebra de produção, então eles vão voltar aí para esse patamar de quase 32, né? Então nós estamos falando de quase 6 milhões de toneladas adicionadas por Índia.
31.6 is back to the normal levels. We are also going to have an increase in Thailand by 1 million tons and a decrease in the European Union. The European Union will offset the growth in Thailand, and we are going to have this increase by 5 million tons in India, and from Brazil it is going to be 2 million. Consumption is growing by 1% per year. The worldwide consumption has been growing by 1 million tons per year, and that increase comes from Asia and Africa and not so much from the developed economies.
Another important point that I would like to touch on, still on this slide, is that the prices that we will start to see and that we have already seen recently is very similar to the Brazilian cost, considering all expenses for exports, for example, administrative expenses and everything it takes for us to ship sugar to the ports. We are at a break-even level. We are going to start seeing, now with this new price level, we are going to start seeing countries like India and Thailand failing to generate good results in the external, the foreign markets. When it comes to exports, those countries will have prices that are below the production cost, and that is going to discourage those countries from exporting.
Now, on this slide, I'd like to show you some forecasts, and we know that there is a wide range in the estimates, in the forecasts that you see all around in this market. In April, we started seeing the first data coming out with a very low production, and some estimates will give you 615-580 million tons. Here, if you look at this number right here with 603, we would be right here at 40.9% or even 41.5% or even 42%. That would be our sugar share in the mix. We believe that the production of sugar will be around 42 million tons in the Centro-Sul region because of our mix, our production mix, which will be close to 52.5%. That's our sugar share in our mix because we increased our production capacity in the Centro-Sul region since the sugar price is high.
It is paying more than the ethanol market. Now, let's take a look. Before that, before we move on to ethanol, I'd like to wrap up this part of the presentation about sugar. We're going to have a surplus, and as you saw, the price for exports in the main producing countries is going to cause those countries to export less. We need to remember that consumption is growing by 1% per year, which accounts roughly for 2 million tons. That's the additional demand that the consumer market will demand. For ethanol, we put together this chart to show you the supply of ethanol this year. Here we are including anhydrous, hydrous ethanol, and we're going to show you a comparison between the next crop year and the last crop year.
As you can see on the slide, there will be a decrease in ethanol supply in the consuming market in Brazil. Last year, we had about 35 billion in production. We are going to have a 1.7 billion L increase from corn ethanol. The sugar share in the mix is going to reduce that supply of ethanol by 2.6 billion, and the market will grow. The growth here is 1.5% in the auto cycle fuel market. We are going to go from almost 35 to 33.5 billion L without considering E30 ethanol, which is the blend, the fuel blend of 30% ethanol, 70% gasoline. The supply of ethanol is going to be smaller, and therefore the parity will have to be higher at the gas stations, at the pump.
If we include E30 ethanol starting in July, we would have a demand of 874 million L, and therefore the gap here would be between 35 billion-32.6 billion liters in the market, and that is going to be adjusted by price. Now, I'd like to give you more color on E30 ethanol. We had good news this week. CNPE, which is the body that deliberates on the increase in the share of ethanol in the fuel blend, scheduled a meeting for late June, and in this meeting, we believe there's a good likelihood that the increase in ethanol in the fuel blend will be approved. In that scenario that I'm showing here in the increase of demand of 874 million liters, that is going to come to pass. If we had good news coming from this meeting, we are going to have this scenario starting in August.
In a nutshell, the ethanol market is going to have a smaller supply of ethanol than we had last year. This slide shows data from SCA, and we are including only hydrous ethanol fuel. We are not including anhydrous ethanol or other types of ethanol used in different purposes. We are only talking about hydrous ethanol fuel. By looking at the supply here, we can see on this curve that the estimated parity will be 67%, and this is for the Centro-Sul region of Brazil, okay? This is not really how we create our sales strategy. We usually estimate a higher volume in the off-season, and we usually include the São Paulo market in the calculation of the average price per liter.
In the SCA curve that you can see on this slide, which we believe is very similar to the reality, the gross average price of ethanol in the São Paulo market is at BRL 3.22. That's the average for the year, and it already includes the recent changes in the price of gasoline. There was a recent reduction in the price of gasoline here. This is the scenario that we are envisioning for hydrous ethanol in the market in São Paulo at a parity level of 67%. If E30 ethanol starts to be used, we believe that this is going to rise to 68%. We are going to have a 1.5% upside here in the potential price of ethanol. Now, let's take a look at our figures.
We finished the crop year in the third quarter, but just so you have an idea, we finished the year with crushing that is 7% higher year on year. The Centro-Sul region had a decrease of over 5% in the crushing level, but we actually had an increase. Of course, we are growing right now. Our TCH was in line with last year. Now, harvested areas increased by 6% year on year, and that is related to our expansion process. Our average TCH was 84.5, 97.5 in the Jalles unit. It was a record-breaking productivity level for us, except for when we started, but with a consolidated sugarcane field with the average age of 3.2 years. That is the best level that we have ever had. In Otávio Lage, 90, and Santa Vitória, 65.4.
We expected a little bit more at Otávio Lage in the beginning of the crop year and also Santa Vitória, but in Santa Vitória, as we mentioned earlier, we struggled with the drought in the Centro-Sul region as a whole. This one really struggled more than the other units. Therefore, there was a reduction year on year in our yield. Now, total TRS per hectare, there was a decrease by 2%, and our average TRS was 4% lower year on year. The production mix, we gave you guidance showing that we wanted 51% of sugar. It was actually 44.3%, and this is related to the delay in the production, the beginning of the production at Santa Vitória. We also had a problem with raw material quality in Otávio Lage and Santa Vitória. That's why we were not able to reach 51% in sugar in our mix.
This year, with the increase in the production at the Otávio Lage unit and the consolidation of Santa Vitória, we estimate we are going to reach 54%. The average age of the sugarcane field was 3.2. The average price of sugar increased by 3.7% year on year, and ethanol was the main highlight. We had a 20% increase going from 256 to 308. This price of 308, according to the SCA curve, would be 3.22, but there is a gap of 5 cents between regions. Here in the state of Goiás, it is a bit lower. If we were to give you an estimate based on the SCA curve that I showed you earlier, and the SCA team is extremely competent and knowledgeable about the ethanol market, then this number would be 317 in the state of Goiás.
Now, sold TRS, we had higher inventory last year, so we had not sold the entire production. This year, we sold 100% of our production throughout the year. We had a lower ethanol inventory, which is our strategy precisely. We wanted to have a very low inventory when the crop year changed. Last year, we carried over more inventory than we like, but this year we managed to get it right in our ethanol sales strategy. We had ethanol to sell in the off-season and got better prices. Now, the sugar inventory, 44.2, and organic sugar, which has the higher value added, we had a delay in shipments, and that is going to be offset this season, this crop year. The inventory in April, May, and June will be shipped out of the company.
Now, our adjusted EBIT with an 18% margin coming from 9.5% last year, our adjusted EBITDA margin was 63.3%, and our net income was a negative BRL 56 million, but I'm going to explain this to you later. It would have been a positive result, but we had significant mark-to-market effects because of our debt swaps, our capital issuances, and I'm going to go to the next slide to explain it to you. Our capital market debt is all indexed to the IPCA inflation rate, and we swapped it to the CDI rate. There was a non-cash mark-to-market change in the amount of BRL 130 million because of the increase of interest rates. The treasury notes changed over the course of the past years, and we also had a non-cash effect of BRL 3 million in sugar and BRL 75 million in the exchange rate.
This is all related to commodities, but we always tell you the same thing about this. We offset this naturally because the biological asset increases in value when the price of sugar goes up, and that causes a negative MTM change. The opposite also happens, but this one about the, I apologize, I think we had a problem with the. This gap of BRL 130 million was significant because if it were not for this, we would have a positive net income. The cash earnings, as you can see here, increased, but it fell short of our expectations for this year. I am going to give you more color on that when we talk about our guidance. Here you can see our net debt, BRL 1.7 billion, with a leverage level of 1.2 times. Our leverage went down year on year.
Our debt is very well distributed over the next years with an average term of 4.7 years and a cash of BRL 1.2 billion. In May, we issued bonds in the market in the amount of BRL 400 million. The repayment of our debts for 2025-2026 is taken care of, and our cash will be sufficient to repay the debt over the next 4-5 years. We are finishing the process of investing in the industrial areas in Otávio Lage and Santa Vitória, but there is very little left. We have to invest more in the fields. Now, let me give you some color on our hedge policy. We finished at 85.8% of our volume hedged. This number is now actually 2.1% in the market. We are above the market average.
Now, for 2026-2027, we have already hedged 68.9% of the volume, and for crop year 2027-2028, as of March, we had 2.4% hedged of our production of 2.6 billion. Of course, we're going to follow our policy. That's why the number for 2027-2028 is not so high, but you are going to see this number increasing over the months. Now, we have a production capacity of 540 conventional sugar, and this is what we hedged, and we have hedged 714.5 million tons. That allows us to have 1.3 times crop years hedged if we consider the total amount of our production. Now, let me give you some more details about our costs.
We had an increase in COGS because we sold more, and when we look at our TRS, and when we exclude the impairment reversion effect that we had last year in Santa Vitória, and that is an accounting effect only, when we adjust for that effect, we can see that the increase was 0.9%. This year, the costs were almost at the same level as last year. Now, cents per pound, we had an increase of 3% in our costs, and here we have the cash COGS. When we finished the crop year, it makes sense for us to look at this number because you can see the numbers for the entire year. You can see the results of the maintenance CapEx and all that. In our release, you can see the explanation about this, and the increase was 4.5%.
As many of you know, we are now finishing the investments in the industrial department to get to 1 million tons in increased capacity across the units. We still have to invest a bit more in the sugarcane field. We have to expand by 3,000 hectares in Otávio Lage and Jalles, but we are now completing the investments that we committed to at the IPO. We just need to expand by 3,000 hectares, which will account for BRL 60 million in investment, and that will finish all the investments that we promised to make at the IPO. You can see here the budget. We spent 4.6% more than the budget, but our production is higher. Our yield is higher. It should be 15,000 bags per day, but it is actually 20,000 bags per day. That is a nominal capacity that we have.
Of course, that's not the number that we're going to have for the entire year, but that's the nominal average, and we reached it recently. About biomethane, very briefly, we have a partnership with Albioma, as Otávio mentioned, and we already produce biogas. Now we're going to start the process of producing biomethane through the desulfurization and then purification, removing CO2 from biogas. Almost 40% of biogas is CO2 and 2% is sulfur, so we have to remove those elements. We compress biomethane. We should invest 10 normal cubic meters per year, and in this partnership, we're going to have a 49% stake, and Albioma is going to have 51%.
In the material fact that we published when we signed the contract, we told you that this project will be funded through an income tax-free line, and Jalles will have to invest BRL 10 million because we're only going to use the income tax-free line. The return will be north of 20% on this investment. Now, let's talk about our guidance. First, I'd like to show you some details about rainfall in the three units. The light green bars show rainfall from September 2024 through April 2025. The dark green bars show the rainfall for the previous year. In Jalles, Otávio Lage, and Santa Vitória, you can see that rainfall was very similar to last year. Rainfall really starts in October. It was very good in October, November. December was okay. January was in line with the previous year too.
The scenario indicated that we would have a good crop year, but then in February and March, rainfall decreased sharply across the board in all units, Jalles, Laje, and Santa Vitória. Rainfall was much lower than the historical average. In April, in Goiás and Santa Vitória, rainfall went back to normal levels. The guidance that we are going to show you is 4% lower than our original expectation. Since we are giving you guidance now in June, since the beginning of the crop year, we had a chance to review our crushing levels downwards, which we did not expect in the beginning. This volume of 7.9 million tons, when we started the crop year, it was actually 8.3. Of course, we had not published this guidance at that moment, but then the crop year started and yields are lower than expected, crushing is lower than expected.
Our agronomists decided to take a look at why that is happening, and the conclusion was that sunlight was lower than expected and the average temperature was a bit higher. In March, especially March, we had just half of the rainfall volume that we expected. Of course, fluctuations are normal, but we believe that those were the main factors: lower sunlight and higher temperatures. That is why this guidance is reviewed downwards by 4%. This year, we are going to grow our areas by 5%. We are going to increase 4,100 hectares that we planted last year, that was our expanded areas, and we are going to produce 1% more, precisely because of the lower yields than we expected initially. Our average TRS is 139.9, and the sugar share in our mix is 54%, which is almost our installed capacity, which is 55%. We estimate we are going to reach 54%.
Of course, in case sugar is performing better than ethanol. Now, let's take a look at our CapEx, starting with expansion CapEx. We are not going to invest anymore except for biological assets. As I said earlier, we estimate that this year, out of the BRL 60 million, we are going to expand only 1,500 hectares. That's why our investment here is going to be so little, but we are not going to invest anymore on the industrial side. In Santa Vitória, we are going to invest in biological assets and also machines. Here you can see we're going to invest BRL 25 million. We're going to pave 7 km of roads in Santa Vitória to improve the access into the unit and also shipments, but we are going to be reimbursed for that expense by the state through the ICMS tax. For irrigation, we're going to spend BRL 38 million.
Over half of that will be in Santa Vitória. We are going to increase our irrigated area in 4,000 hectares. We just finished implementing a pivot irrigation in 800 hectares, and on our Jalles Day, we are going to go there so that you can take a look. The recurring investment in the amount of BRL 489,000, this is the total. It is in line with last year and crop management practices, BRL 475,000. Since the harvested area will be 4,000 hectares larger this year after the 5% increase in the area, the unit cost will increase by 2%. This increase, the total increase, is due to the larger area that we are going to harvest this year. Last year, our CapEx was BRL 50 million lower than we estimated, and that happened because we spent less in expansion in Lage and Jalles and Otávio Lage.
We spent a little bit more in Santa Vitória. We spent also a bit more in the plant in Santa Vitória. In irrigation, we invested BRL 19 million, and the recurring was BRL 458.3 million, and therefore we spent 7% less than we expected. I took a little longer in the presentation today because I wanted to give you more color on the guidance that we always publish every year, and I wanted to give you more details about the entire crop year. In crop year 2024-2025, we had a lower volume than we expected. We expected to have better results this year, but we are going to start consolidating all the investments that were made. We are now going to start optimizing processes, get more efficiency. The team is 100% focused on that. After investing so much, it is now time to improve our performance across the board.
Now I'm ready to take your questions. Thank you very much. Perfeito. Muito obrigada, senhor Rodrigo. Thank you very much, Mr. Rodrigo. We are now going to start the Q&A session. To ask a question, please click the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. If you wish to open your microphone to ask your question, please let us know through the Q&A field, and your microphone will be activated later when your name is called. You can also submit questions in writing by typing your question in the Q&A field. If you're using a dial-in connection, you can also ask a question. Please press Star nine on your phone to ask a question. After your name is called, you will hear instructions to press Star six to activate your microphone. Please make sure to press Star six only once. The first question comes from Mr. Pedro Fontana with Bradesco BPI. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Rodrigo and Otávio. Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to talk a little bit more about production cost. Considering that your guidance is estimating a lower yield, what is the unit cost that you expect to have in the 2025-2026 crop year? Thank you, Pedro. That's a great question. Labor expenses will increase according to the inflation. We're going through a shortage of labor in Brazil, and I think that's not exclusive to our sector. I hear a number of business people across different industries talking about that. When it comes to inputs and fuels, inputs in general, including industrial inputs and also crop protection, fertilizers, in our guidance, we included details about that. We have now many contracts signed with suppliers for this year, and the prices have been lower than we projected earlier.
We managed to get better prices, even without considering the recent decrease in the FX rate. We have some service providers as well, especially in transportation, transshipment, and the other heavier costs that we have related to service providers. In those cases, those costs, precisely because of the drop in the price of diesel and lubricants, we managed to get some efficiencies. We are not going to have increasing costs related to that. There is a trend for the next year for us to get lower costs than we had last year. We are putting in place a number of administrative practices to improve our efficiency and automate some activities in the field. For example, with irrigation, we are going to have automated irrigation so that we can get better efficiency from our machines, which drives costs down because of better availability and also better quality.
There are other initiatives that we have been putting in place as well when it comes to harvesting, transshipment, and transportation to gain efficiency. We have been working on several fronts to improve efficiency. Pedro, when we talk about overall costs, some will reduce, some will increase, for example, labor, workforce. I think that the costs will be in line with last year. Maybe we are going to have an increase by 2%-3%, or we might be positively surprised. The FX rate is decreasing even more, so that has an impact on our costs as well, especially when it comes to inputs. We might see some good surprises along the way. Thank you. Now, the next question comes from Mr. Matheus Enfeld with UBS. Go ahead. Hello. Good afternoon, Rodrigo. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two.
I'd like to know more about the price of sugar and the price of ethanol. We saw some distinct movements in the price of oil and the price of sugar in the past weeks. Considering the Centro-Sul region and neighboring regions that are far away from the ports, do you think there are risks in terms of having to increase the share of ethanol in your mix due to the change in prices? Do you think you will have the ability to do that, to increase the share of ethanol in your mix in comparison with your guidance? My second question is still related to your guidance. It seems to me that the increase in yield that we are going to need in 2026-2027 should be very high, at about 11%-12%, which is not impossible.
We have seen the Centro-Sul region do that before in the past, but it would be challenging. My question is, what is your perspective related to this year's productivity so that you can reach the 9 million production target by 2027? Those are my questions. Thank you. Matheus, thank you very much for joining the call and asking questions. Starting with your question about the price of sugar and the price of ethanol, some places are already considering leaning more towards ethanol in their mix, but in São Paulo, we still have a premium on sugar. In regions like Mato Grosso, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Minas Gerais, in Minas Gerais, the price of sugar is better. The other states that I mentioned, Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Mato Grosso do Sul, hydrous ethanol currently is already recovering.
In Goiás, there is an incentive in the spot market, considering the spot market, it is paying more than in other regions. We can revert the share of ethanol in our mix, Jalles and Otávio Lage, because we sell sugar in the internal, the domestic market. We hedge sugar in New York, although our market is here. If the situation is such that ethanol is paying more than sugar, we can make a profit because of the hedge. We are going to have the hedge adjustment, and also we can have that upside if ethanol is paying more than sugar. In the units in the state of Goiás, we can change the mix because we have 88% of the crop year hedged, the production of sugar. In the state of Minas Gerais, that is not possible because we have contracts in place.
All of those who produce sugar in São Paulo and Minas, that's more difficult to pull off. For example, we have contracts with railroad companies, so it can be done, but the upside needs to be very advantageous in order for us to do that. Of course, we can try to renegotiate things in those regions if the case requires, but only in those regions. I do not think in the state of Minas Gerais and São Paulo the situation will change so much to justify changing the mix. Now, for 2026-2027, Matheus, our guidance for this crop year is 4% lower than we estimated initially. Our normal yield would give us a crushing level of 8.3 million if it were not for the 4% adjustment downwards. Since we are growing in area, we are expanding by 3,000 hectares. That would give us about 300,000 tons more.
If we have the same yield that we had last year, and this is not guidance, okay, let me make that clear. If the yield is at the same level as it was last year, plus the adjustments because of the sugarcane plant mix, we would have 8.3 million + 308,000 tons. We should remember that we are working on increasing our yield across the three units with better varieties of sugarcane. We have been working very hard on that. The reference of the past two years are not the best references that we had. At Otávio Lage, in some years we had 100, at Jalles we had 97 last year. If we increase our yield by only 3%-4%, apart from the natural increases that we had over the past years, that would take us to almost 9 million.
But we are going to have 3,000 hectares more in our expanded area. It really depends on what yield we are going to have so that we can reach the 8.3-8.7 million tons. It is still too early to tell. The formation of the sugarcane fields will happen in the next rainy season. That is it. I do not know if I addressed all your questions. If you need any follow-up questions, please go ahead. No, that was clear. Thank you. Nossa, a próxima pergunta vem do senhor Guilherme Gutilha. The next question comes from Guilherme Gutilha with BTG Pactual. Thank you for taking my question. First, the first question I think you have already addressed, but just a follow-up question. I would like to know more about your expansion CapEx.
You said that out of the BRL 154 million in operating improvements, part of that amount would be offset by some benefits. Can you give us more color on that? Pouquinho mais de informação, por favor, ajudaria. That would be very helpful. Thank you. O Guilherme, boa tarde. Obrigado aí pela participação. Thank you, Guilherme, for your participation. Esse asfalto é o seguinte. This investment is related to the paving of roads to access our unit. The government of the state of Minas Gerais has a regulation that says that if any company shows positive impacts, and of course the state government has to agree to the construction of the road. Let's imagine that you do the construction work service, and 60% of the ICMS tax revenue that you generate from that point onwards can be used to offset your cost.
Let's suppose I am paying BRL 10 million in ICMS tax. This is just an example, okay? Let's say I am paying BRL 10 million in ICMS tax per year. If you start to pay BRL 20 million, 60% of that gap from BRL 10 million- BRL 20 million can be used to offset the investment that you had to make in the roads, considering, of course, that you follow all the criteria provided by the state government. For example, it has to be an important road. We managed to get the approval for that. We have 1,700 employees that have to travel from the city to the unit. 1,700 people have to go there every day. It makes a lot of sense for the region and also to ship products. Since we have a dirt road at the moment there, we have problems when it rains.
We are going to get the reimbursement for that. Of course, it is going to take us two to three years to get that money to recover that cost. We are just working on half of the length of the road. The road is 14 kilometers long in total. We are only going to pave 7 kilometers of that road, the most problematic part. Okay, Rodrigo, thank you. Nossa, a próxima pergunta vem do senhor. The next question comes from Mr. Pedro Fonseca from XP. Boa tarde, Otávio. Boa tarde, Rodrigo. Obrigado pela presença. Thank you, Otávio and Rodrigo. Eu queria fazer uma primeira sobre alocação de capital. Acho que o Otávio. My question is about capital allocation. Otávio talked about biomethane in his initial remarks.
I'd like to know if you are considering other types of projects, for example, corn ethanol, which you talked about in the past. Maybe the return on investing in corn ethanol would pay off. The second question is about organic sugar. Em barcos pouco mais lentos do que a gente esperaria. We might see some slower shipments. There is a drop in the commodity price. Can we expect to see an increase in the production of organic sugar? That's it on my side. Thank you. Pedro, boa tarde. Obrigado aí pela participação e pela pergunta também. Thank you, Pedro, for your participation. A gente, o nosso foco aí foi fazer todo esse trabalho de expansão da Jalles, com M&A e com os outros. We had M&A deals in the past years.
We invested a lot over the past years, and we are still to meet the target of 9 million tons. We invested, we worked very hard, and now we need to make the most of the assets that we have. For corn ethanol, we designed some projects, but it is not going to happen in the medium and short terms. It is completely out of question with the investment, with the interest rates being so high as they are. Now we are focusing on making the most with the assets that we do have. Now, when it comes to biomethane, we have a partnership with Otávio Lage, and we have Jalles and Santa Vitória to go. If we do it, and there is a possibility that we are going to do it, we are going to do it with a partnership.
We are not going to invest too much capital in it. In the case of biomethane, we already have the production of biogas installed at Otávio Lage. We are going to invest about BRL 80 million, as we published in the Material Fact. The cash disbursement that the company will make is BRL 10 million. It is not that relevant. The advantage of biomethane is that it is a sustainable product. It fits well with the decarbonization agenda. The IRR is also interesting, and there are some external effects that also yield great results. The biodigested vinasse with a neutral pH has a very positive effect on the soil. It is also positive in terms of agricultural practices. We still have to research the amount of benefits that we get from using vinasse, but there is another benefit. We become more competitive as the diesel engines start to transition.
For example, for irrigation and tractors, trucks as well, our costs will go down when we switch from diesel to biomethane. Those are all advantages that we are going to reap. We are going to be able to replace a fossil fuel, but that's not going to have any impact on our debt, for example. We are focusing now on operating the three units that we have very well, reaching our fullest capacity, optimizing the operations, getting efficiencies, and then we are going to start to grow again. Otherwise, you have several fronts with different initiatives, and you won't be able to focus on anything specifically. We now need to fine-tune the things that we are doing at the moment to get more efficiency and optimize the operations. About organic sugar, Pedro, we had an issue with shipment that is right.
We believe that the market is better now in terms of demand, we believe that the prices will be 7% higher than last year in dollars. Organic sugar prices are going up. Differently from conventional sugar. There is no correlation between the two. The markets are completely different, which is good because it is an additional protection for us. One mitigates the risks of the other in terms of cash flow. We can see a price increase here, and I think that we are going to see a volume increase in comparison with last year. Okay, that is clear. Thank you. Vamos agora para a nossa última pergunta do senhor Pedro Gama. One last question from Mr. Pedro Gama with Citibank. Boa tarde, Rodrigo. Obrigado pela pergunta. Good afternoon, Rodrigo. Thank you for taking my question.
Following up on Matheus' question and also about yield, in your previous investor days, you said that your yield should be 90 at Jalles and Otávio Lage and 80 in Santa Vitória in order for you to reach the target of 9 million tons. What happened that prevented you to reach the target in your initial timeline? Was it weather, and how long should we expect this target to take? Also, when it comes to cash generation and expansion, what are you going to do with the cash that you generate this year and next year? Are you going to decrease your leverage? Are you going to start considering other expansion projects? What is the leverage level that you deem comfortable for the company? Obrigado pela pergunta. Thank you, Pedro. Thank you for your question. You're a regular in our earnings calls.
Last year our yield was 90 at Otávio Lage, which is a little bit lower than our expected range. E Jalles teve 97,5, então a média. And Jalles was 97.5, so the average between the two was 94. Vamos falar normal de clima. In a normal situation with normal weather, the average between the two would be 96-97, which is the high 90s that you mentioned. The weather last year was not ideal. Santa Vitória, we expected to reach 79 by next year, as we told you on our first Jalles day, right? I remember we talked about the journey that would take us to 79. In Santa Vitória, we had a significant problem last year. We expected to have 72 last year, but it was actually 65. There was a sharp reduction in the yield that we expected to have.
Of course, it had an impact, a carryover effect, if you will, for the next year. We are going to start this year with some failures, but we are implementing new agricultural management practices. The company changed its strategy and also its team. That happened very recently in the past months to accelerate things. We have seen positive results. There was an area of almost 500 hectares in which we used a variety that responded very well. It is not the irrigated area. In Santa Vitória, we had never had the yield that we had in that area. Now we can replicate that to other areas. We can use better varieties at a commercial scale. We were not able to do that before because we did not have that variety available in the region to plant a larger area.
The use of organic compounds and irrigation and better crop management practices will allow us to go beyond 79 in Santa Vitória. We have already implemented those practices in 700 hectares. What is hindering our progress is energy. We even engaged with the mayor because we think it would be important for the region. We want to go beyond that. You are right. It took us a little bit longer to get to the target that we wanted because of the weather. Normally, in the region, we should have had rain in September and May, and we did not. The sugarcane there struggled a lot last year, and that carried over to this crop season, crop year, rather. There is room for improvement.
We identified some mistakes here and there, and we adjusted our team at Otávio Lage because we think that Otávio Lage has the potential to perform more than just 90 tons per hectare. Your second question, what was it again? Pedro, can you repeat the second question, please? Bom. Pedro está me ouvindo? Pedro? Bom, tinha mais alguma. He asked a second question that I can't recall at the moment. Não estou lembrado aqui, ele não está conectado. I don't think he's answering. Então, eu gostaria. That was our last question. Now I'd like to turn it over to you, Mr. Paulo, for your closing remarks. Please go ahead. Thank you very much for your participation.
It is a great honor to have you all join us in our earnings call and rooting for us, helping us with your very interesting questions, bringing a wealth of considerations to give us food for thought and give us the insights to improve even more. If you can come to Santa Vitória to join us on our Jalles Day, that would be a great honor to have you with us to know more about how irrigation works, to take a look at our plant. It is a very modern, world-class plant. It will be an honor to have you with us next week. Thank you. This concludes the fourth Q25 earnings call for today. Thank you. Have a good one.