Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Jalles' Conference Call to discuss the Results of the Third Quarter of Crop Year 2025, 2026. This conference is being recorded and simultaneously translated into English. The replay will be available in both languages at the company's website at ri.jallesmachado.com. All participants will be in a listen-only mode during the presentation. After the presentation, we will have a Q&A session when further instructions will be given. As we have limited time in this conference, any questions that are not addressed during the call will be addressed later by the company's investor relations team. The earnings release and the slide presentation on the third quarter of crop year 2025, 2026, can be accessed on the company's IR website and also at the CVM's website.
Before proceeding, I would like to mention that any statements that may be made during the conference related to the company's business perspectives are forecasts based on the company's management's current expectations. Such expectations are subject to change due to macroeconomic conditions, market risks, and other factors. Today with us is Mr. Rodrigo Penna de Siqueira, CFO and IRO.
I would like to turn the floor over to Mr. Penna. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everybody. I'd like to thank all of you who are joining us today. We're going to talk about the results of the third quarter of crop year 2025, 2026. I'll try to be brief in the presentation so that we have more time to address your questions. Okay, so let me start by give you an overview of the sugar market. Just a second, please. Okay, so let's talk about the market overview.
Let me show you some details of the sugar world balance. DATAGRO reviewed the estimated surplus for 2026 to 0.9 tons, and we should remember that the crop year starts in October and goes all the way through September. And as you can see here, that we are going to be at 41.4% in the inventory to consumption ratio. If you look at the curve, you can see that we are at one of the lowest levels since 2013, second only to last year. And that poses a few questions, because the New York numbers exceeded $0.14 per pound, but the inventory is not that high. If we look at our track record, we can see that the inventory is not that high.
In India, there is a forecasted production of 32.1%, and Thailand reduced the forecast to 10.6 million tons since the latest DATAGRO data, and European Union stands at 15.7 million . Also, we believe that DATAGRO's information shows that we are going to have a mix that leans more towards ethanol than sugar. So if Brazil can turn a little bit more of sugar into ethanol, this balance can actually become a deficit in terms of sugar. So it is possible that this sugar price moment, by looking at this data, is not going to last so long. We are hedged. We are going to show you some overview of our hedge position further down the presentation, but we are in a good spot in terms of the sugar market for the next two years.
But if it lasts longer than that, we are going to start selling, we will have to start selling at a lower price. Now, let's talk about ethanol. I believe in previous earnings calls, I touched on some of these details, so I'm going to skip a few of them. But in equivalent numbers from one year to the other, excluding the growth variables and E-30, we can see here that we had a crop year that was 2.5 million liters lower than the same scenario last year. That's why the parity right now is more than 72% in São Paulo, with a gross price of BRL 3.70 in São Paulo, and it should remain like that until we change the crop year in April, when we restart the mills.
The parity shouldn't be so high, and the ethanol price should drop in the next crop year. Our carryover inventory will be lower than the historical levels from one crop year to the next, so we are going to be turning the crop year with a very tight inventory. Now, I decided to include this simulation based on our track record, because many questions have been asked about the growth of corn ethanol. In the previous slide, we can see that last year we had almost 2.5 million liters more than this crop year for ethanol. For next year, we are going to see an increase in supply of 4 million liters, but we are going to have E-30, including the entire crop year. So we are talking about 3 billion liters more in comparable numbers.
If we look back to 2018, 2019, and 2020, we can see that the use of hydrous ethanol in comparison with the entire auto cycle fuel market, we had 28% and 29.2% of the hydrous ethanol being used in the entire auto cycle fuel market. If we consider the flex vehicles, the total amount used by those vehicles went up from 80% to almost 90%. If we look at these numbers, we decided to calculate the potential that we had if the situation was exactly the same as 2018 and 2019 and 2020. If we had 29.2% use of hydrous ethanol, which is a low use, actually, then the consumption of hydrous ethanol, and of course, when you use more hydrous ethanol, you decrease anhydrous.
That would go up to 39.2 billion liters, and that has happened in the past. It's not unprecedented. And that would give us a growth of more than 5.2 billion liters. And of course, we are going to see an increase in the auto cycle fuel market, because it usually keeps up with the growth of the GDP, and also we are going to have E-30 covering the entire, entire crop year. So there is room for growth, but what is going to happen is that this line right here, which shows the parity, the average parity at the pump, should drop. So here in crop year 2025-26, we are estimating a parity of 69.3%, and that's for Jalles. That's our market estimate.
There's just two months in the crop year for the crop year to end, and it should go down to 63.4%-66.3%. That's the track record. That's what we need to have a consumption of 39.2 billion , but we don't believe that we will need to have so much consumption in the coming crop year. So you can see that there is room to grow, and we should remember that the percentage of flex fuel engine fleet increased in the past period. And also, we have some additional potential demands. For example, maritime fuel. I believe it is going to start happening faster than SAF. And there's also another point that can improve. Now, there are new ethanol-producing states in Brazil. For example, the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the state of Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí.
Piauí is a smaller state, but still it is a new space, a new area for consumption. So these states should start consuming more ethanol, and the distribution of ethanol will expand from the mid-region of Brazil, Mato Grosso, Goiás, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, where we have more consumption of ethanol. And the companies that build their plants in those states must negotiate with their respective states a more competitive ICMS tax for ethanol, just like the other more traditional ethanol-producing states did. And also, we have SAF, sustainable aviation fuel, and exports with international mandates, which is also a possibility for increased demand. So this was the exercise that we did, looking back and looking forward at some potential demands.
We are finishing the crop year. The price right now for ethanol in São Paulo is at BRL 3.60, BRL 3.68. This is a projection by SCA. In March, you can see that the price is going to start to lower. The average for this year will be BRL 3.40 per liter in São Paulo, in comparison with BRL 3.07 in 2024-25. We can see a significant improvement year-on-year, and we believe that in the next crop year, remember, we talked about the parity from 63%-66%. That should be the lowest to the highest range. And if that parity really comes to pass, the price in São Paulo should be BRL 2.50-BRL 2.70. That would be the average net price. So if gasoline stays at the same price level without any changes due to FX or the U.S. dollar, that should be the price to expect.
I think I've touched this on this already. We struggled with the weather this year. We had a lower number of tons of sugarcane per hectare, and in Goiás, the total recoverable sugar, according to the CTC bulletin, which encompasses a number of plants in the Center-South region, it shows that the TRS was higher in the Jalles and Otávio Lage units and lower in Goiás, and the tons of sugarcane per hectare stood like this. We had wheat competition in the organic area, which accounted for much of this drop. In Minas Gerais, we had almost the same level here, but tons of sugarcane per hectare had a bigger gap between the state of Minas Gerais and Santa Vitória.
Now, the harvested area increased by more than 3%, crushing decreased by 10%. If we consider that the tons of sugarcane per hectare, it was more than 12%, and we had already crop failures in the previous, in the previous crop year. That accounts for 15% less revenue, with virtually the same fixed cost, which of course, caused a lot of impact on the results expected for this crop year. Now, I'm not going to touch on the details of total tons of sugarcane per hectare by unit. Now, our Production mix 63.6% was ethanol and 46.4% of sugar. Our sugarcane field average age 3.2 years, which helped us in the crop failure in Minas Gerais, because we are ramping up our yield and the sugarcane field is a little bit younger.
The mills surrounding ours had much more impacts, had much more of an impact due to the crop failure caused by the weather, so the average age of the sugarcane helped us. But still, the yield was terrible, much lower than we expect to have in Santa Vitória. Now, sugar, on average, the average price, price is about 5% less. The ethanol price increased by 11%. And year to date, we can see that the prices on average have been higher than last year, 12% higher. Now, let me show you some details of our sales. 52% of the sold volume, 52% accounts for sugar, and we have already sold 78% of the production of the year.
We kept 96 million liters, and that is 30% of the volume produced in the crop year, and the sugar inventory is a little bit higher than last year, but that, that is normal, because last year we had a problem with the volume of sugar that we expected, and the inventory was very low for the last three months of the crop year. Last year was not a typical year, but this year was normal. Now, let me show you some details of our hedge. Here you can see the levels of the sugar market right now and the levels where we are standing right now for the next crop years.
This is all referring to sugar commodity, and the indexer shows the swaps, the swap operations, the debt that we converted from the IPCA inflation rate to the CDI interest rate. So that caused a positive impact, but that is almost fully offset by the negative impact that we had with the biological assets. Since we are projecting a lower price. And we calculate the biological asset according to the spot price, and therefore, the projection for ethanol and sugar is a little lower. And you, if you look at our financial statements, you are going to see the mark-to-market operation effect being offset by the biological assets. Our adjusted EBIT, the margin, was 15.6%. We are using the hedge settlements that are used to protect our revenue. We are adjusting, therefore, our EBIT.
Our adjusted EBITDA had a 62% margin, with a net profit of BRL 60 million against a loss of BRL 42 million, and cash profit that was higher than last year as well. The debt, net debt, was in line with last year, with a leverage level of 1.2x, and with the issuances that we had at the end of last year, it was actually one issuance. We closed the period with a cash of BRL 2.06 billion, which covers our debt until 2029-2030. So we took advantage of the positive moment with the change of legislation of the CRI and CRA issuances. And another important point that I would like to highlight is that at the end of December, the average cost of the entire debt is at the CDI interest rate plus 0.1%.
So the cash is invested with a return rate of 101% of the CDI rate. So we don't have any cost of carrying so much cash. Apart, of course, from the security and liquidity that we have in the company, since we are now going through a moment of lower commodity cycles. We still have an IFC that was signed in November, as communicated to the market, in the amount of $60 million. So we are going to have a disbursement this quarter, and the remaining amount will come in the next crop year. The average tenure of our debt is 4.7 years. Our hedge for the next crop year.
Well, for 2025-2026, we still have one quarter to go. We are 100% hedged, and for the next crop year, 75% of our sugar production is hedged. Since we cannot give you any guidance, 75% is based on our protection, our production, rather, capacity, excluding organic sugar. So this refers to the capacity. If we have an ethanol-leaning mix, this 75% can get to 100% or even more than that, depending on the ethanol sugar mix. And for 2027, 2028, 40% of our production is hedged. The light green bars show what the market is right now, or as of February fifth. This is the spot price, and the dark green shows the hedged price. We actually had a decrease in February 5, and here for 2027, 2028, we are 25% higher than the rest of the market.
Now, our COGS, we had an increase of 0.9%. And that is related to the crop failure. 75% of our costs are fixed, especially because we use our own sugarcane. If we have a 15% crop failure, according to our expectations, if we didn't have that failure, we would have had a significant reduction in the unit prices this year. And that's it for the presentation. I tried to be as brief as possible. 22 minutes in our presentation, so as to leave more time for you to ask your questions. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take your questions. 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 a question, please let us know in the Q&A field, and your microphone will be activated 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 questions. Please press star nine on your phone to ask your question, and after your name is called, you will hear instructions to press star six to activate your microphone. And please make sure to press star six only once. The first question comes from Victor Modanese with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one is about your comment on the release that says that you are mapping some opportunities to gain efficiencies, including by implementing committees with the purpose of optimizing costs. Considering these possibilities and a potential cost reduction in 2026, 2027, with an increase in crushing as well, how much should we expect in terms of cash costs per unit in the next crop year? And the second question is: in your release, you said something that's very interesting about your sugarcane field average age.
According to the release in Otávio Lage, the average age is four years, more or less. Can we expect a renewal earlier in this unit? And what would be the ideal average age across your units? Thank you.
Hello, Victor, and thank you for asking a question. Very good questions, by the way. We are very focused this year on decreasing the costs since the price is what it is, and unfortunately, we had a crop failure this year, which brought us to results that are not exactly what we expected. So we are trying to find any opportunities to optimize costs, automate, optimize, and mechanize things. We are now in a few different versions of our CapEx and OpEx estimates to try and optimize things. But of course, we don't want to cut down costs in such a way that is going to impact the future crop years. Everything we are going to do is to improve our operations, but we are not going to refrain from renewing the sugarcane fields. We actually changed our cost governance.
We are creating a cost commission with independent members. We are also conducting benchmark studies to try and find efficiencies wherever we can. We want to be in the first quartile of the sector, and if there's a room to cut down costs, we are going to do it. The committee meets monthly. We want to have a matrix budget so that we have more people looking at costs. And what we are talking mostly about here at the company is finding efficiencies and reducing costs. If we look at the units located in the state of Goiás, we produced ethanol with a price a little bit more than BRL 2.50, and that's, that's the cost. Okay, Victor?
And if we compare ourselves against corn ethanol, of course, the corn is at a lower price, DDG is selling well, but in a normal environment, the corn ethanol would be at BRL 2.20 or BRL 2.30. And the sugar, the sugarcane. And the sugarcane ethanol would be at BRL 2.50. We could have had a cost of BRL 2.35 if it weren't for the crop failure. We are very confident about the varieties that are really standing out. There is one in particular that is being multiplied in our sugarcane field right now. There are two IAC varieties that really stand out in our fields because we really want to raise the bar for yield, and we are also using more irrigation.
So, to answer your question, I believe things are going to depend on yields, but we are working hard, extremely hard, to get whatever productivity gains and cost reduction that we can find. And of course, workforce is a factor as well. We are increasing efficiency in a few units, especially Santa Vitória, with a reduction in our staff. We dismissed 170 people in a total team of 1,700 people. So it's still early to tell, but if we have higher yields and a decrease in costs, I believe that we can expect a reduction of 5%-10% in the unit price for the next crop year.
Now, addressing your second question about the average age of the sugarcane fields. Why are our fields older than most of other companies? We have a significant irrigated area for conventional sugarcane, which increases the longevity. And I'm referring to fixed pivot irrigation, because it is the type of irrigation that really increases the longevity of the sugarcane field. But we also have pivots in organic areas. Since we can't use crop protection in those areas, the chemical crop protection, we have to renew those areas faster.
So it's not that we are not renewing the fields, it's because the average age at Otávio Lage is a little bit higher. And at Jalles, we are using a good portion of the pivots because of their potential in conventional sugarcane in comparison with organic sugarcane. We are migrating them to conventional sugarcane to have the same effect. But we are not saving money on renewing the sugarcane fields, because we need the fields to have an appropriate age, to have good use later on.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Gabriel Barra with Citi.
I apologize. Let me just add one last detail to my previous answer. Victor asked about the optimal age. It really depends on the field, but depending on the level of irrigation, it should be 3.2-4 years, depending on the scenario in that specific field. Without irrigation, it should be three years. With irrigation, it can go up to four years, because we are not using irrigation in the entire area. 20% of the sugarcane fields in both units are covered by pivot irrigation. And in Santa Vitória, we are working for it. We implemented 700 hectares this year. We used to have 1,000, but it was poorly operated, but now we are operating the irrigation very well, and we aim to have a higher volume in the coming years, expanding pivot irrigation to a larger area, because the results there are proving to be very good as well.
Now, Gabriel Barra, please go ahead.
Hello, Rodrigo. Thank you for taking my question. The first question is about a previous point that you mentioned. This year is going to be tough for the sector, maybe one of the toughest in the past years, because the sugar market is underperforming in comparison with our expectations, due to a number of reasons. And Brazil came from a very strong crop year, and the sector really invested in the mix over the past years. You invested in the production of sugar in your mix, right? And if we look at our—at your hedge position, I believe that you are more protected than the average of the sector. So I would like to know more about your strategy here. According to what you said in the beginning, it seems to me that the sector as a whole will lean more towards ethanol in the mix.
But considering your hedge and considering the tax incentives in the sector, if you look at the price of ethanol, it seems to me that the cost effectiveness is very high because there's also the CBio and all that. So what can we expect from Jalles' mix? Is it going to be more ethanol than the previous years? And also, you, you showed us our debt. It seems to be okay, but when we look at the cash generation of the company, it's not concerning, but I would like to understand a little bit better your perspective about cash generation for this year. Leverage is not that high, but I, I think that you could go as high as 2x. But with prices as they are right now, how are you going to allocate the capital this year? Are you going to start generating cash again?
Are you going to have a buyback program? I'd like to know more about your capital allocation this year, and what leverage levels should we expect for the end of the year? And by the year, I mean 2026. Okay? Thank you.
Thank you, Gabriel, for your participation, your questions. Well, your first question is very good, because this crop year will be challenging in terms of the mix. A lot of things can happen during the crop year, right? We are going to start the crop year with a mix that is very much leaning towards ethanol. I think the entire sector will do the same. Although we are hedged, it is a financial hedge in New York. Santa Vitória is the only one that has a physical delivery hedge, and we only covered a little bit more than 50,000 tons with physical delivery.
So if the ethanol has a better spot price than sugar, we can change the mix and revert the hedge. We can decide not to produce sugar and produce ethanol instead, because, for example, let's say that sugar is $0.40 per pound, and ethanol equivalent is $0.17 per pound, you can use your fixed level, which is [21], and you can calculate the gap from 21 to 14, and you can revert the production to ethanol. And of course, I'm looking forward here. So we are going to start producing more ethanol. The Center South region as a whole will do it, and then ethanol may well get to a point where it is more or less at the same price as sugar. We don't think that's going to happen, though.
If we do the math, if you look at the sugar prices and when we are going to have the maturity dates, the ethanol prices at that time will be at BRL 2.20, and that is not going to happen because everybody would consume a lot of ethanol, and that would cause an imbalance in the mix. So, the things are going to change. Things are going to change throughout the crop year, and we are going to pay attention to what's happening. And we believe that ethanol is going to be more worth producing until the middle of the crop year. And then after May and June, we believe that sugar and ethanol will converge. The equivalents will be on a more stable level. This is what we expect for the next crop year.
Now, about capital allocation, the answer is no, we don't have any buyback program planned for the short term. What we want to do is to preserve our cash and work on efficiency and reducing costs. Because of ethanol, this year will still be a very tight year for the sector as a whole. So we have to do whatever we can, work as hard as possible to make our debts more stable, and so as we are ready to start investing again when we have a positive cycle. Until there's a better scenario, we don't expect to invest any more than the essential.
Okay, thank you, Rodrigo.
The next question comes from Bruno Tomazetto with BBA.
Hello, everybody. It is a pleasure to talk to you today. I have two questions. The first one is about the positive contribution in the settled hedge. We had the impression that since we didn't have a volume fixed for the hedge, the contribution could be more close to zero. So we had the impression that there was maybe an advance in the settlement, maybe it was an operation that would make sense to do that. So I just wanted to understand this dynamic a little bit better about the sugar hedge settlement.
And the second question is about the longer off-season that you mentioned in the release. You said that there are some benefits, and I would like to know more about that longer off-season and the opportunities that it entails. Is it a good opportunity for us to expect a higher CapEx than we saw in your budget? Thank you.
Thank you, Bruno, for your questions. The first question is-- I'm blanking. Oh, yes, it was about the hedge settlement. Well, what happens is that the sugar futures market only has four screens: K, N, V, and H. Well, I don't remember when they take place precisely, but the V one takes place in October, and H is March of the next year. So all the sugar that is hedged in the H period is the sugar from October to March. So you're going to leave the position, the H position, as you start selling that sugar. So when you look at the four screens in your analysis, you can think that there was nothing maturing in those screens for you to have that gain. But as you leave your positions, you start settling the hedges. Oftentimes, it's not worth it for the company to get the cash as we start reverting.
Depending on taxes and interest, oftentimes, we just get the cash when the settlement actually happens, but it really depends on the scenario. But this relates to the sugar from October to February that is linked to that particular H screen.
Excellent. Okay, thank you.
You also asked a question about the off-season. We started the season a little bit earlier. The CapEx for off-season this year is a little bit higher than last year. I think that's why you're asking this question. Since we are going to start the off-season a little bit earlier, we are going to spend a little bit more to maintain the fields during the off-season. It advances part of the costs and expenses. And also, when you have a slightly longer off-season, you have some labor expenses which are related to the operational part.
As soon as you start planting, the staff is allocated to planting, of course. But what happens is that there's a slight variation because it has one month more in the off-season. But of course, it also has that advanced effect. And we believe that the numbers will be similar to the last crop year until March.
The next question comes from Leonardo Alencar with XP. Please go ahead.
Hello, Rodrigo. Good afternoon. It's always difficult to follow all of these explanations about the futures market. It's very confusing. But to my question, I have the impression that you accelerated the sales of ethanol more than your peers. I was under the impression that you are not going to have so much ethanol for the end of the off-season in comparison with the other players.
I would like to confirm that percentage perception, and why? And the second question. We know that there was a lot of volatility on the sales side, but I would like to know more about the production side as well. Are you expecting problems in the production of organic sugar due to the rainfall, for example? I'd like to know if you have any visibility into the 2026-2027 crop year, especially when it comes to the production of organic sugar. Thank you.
Leonardo, good afternoon. Well, about the weather, I'm going to start actually with the second question. If we have any visibility about the impacts of weather effects in the 2026-2027 crop year. The weather has been favorable in Santa Vitória since the beginning of the crop year. It rained...
It rained a lot more than the previous year. Everything started going well, and things are still going well. January had a lower rainfall than average, but it was not a problem because it rains a lot in any case. December, January and February are the months where we have the most rainfall. Now, at Jalles and Otávio Lage, we had a delay in the rainfall in October, but after that, it started raining. In October, we had 30 millimeters less than the historical levels. In December and November, the rainfall was very good, and January to February as well. We also have a lot of sunlight. We have rains and sunlight, so the sugarcane is really thriving right now. It is developing really well. If we compare today against the same period last year, the sugarcane fields look a lot better.
Towards the end of February and March, the fields started to struggle a little bit more, but that is not our expectation for this year. We're expecting rainfall higher than the historical levels. The rest of February seems to be promising, but we also have March and April, but the scenario so far is very good. It seems to me that the rainfall is going back to normal.
Perfect.
As for your other question about the ethanol sales, no, we didn't accelerate it. What we did was to hold back sales in the first and second quarters. And then, when ethanol started to increase in prices, we started selling more because we thought that the price was worth it. Hydrous ethanol was at a good, good price. Out of the total that we produced, 30% will be sold now from January to March, which is a good volume. We had a good volume to be sold in the third and the fourth quarters, and the other players seem to be very similar, 30%-40%. But since we had a significant price increase towards the end of the third quarter, we started selling more.
Perfect. Okay, thank you.
Next question comes from Thiago Duarte with BTG Pactual.
Hello, good afternoon. It is a pleasure to talk to you.
Likewise, Duarte.
Well, my questions are actually follow-up questions from others asked by my peers. The first one is about the unit cost for the next crop year, which according to you, will drop by 5%-10%, and you were also talking about the weather forecast for March. In order for you to have that cost drop of 5%-10%, you must have a very good recovery in your yield in terms of tons of sugar per hectare and total recoverable sugar.
Is that the case? Do you see that potential, considering that most of your cost is fixed? Do you really think that you are going to have such a significant gain in the next crop year in comparison with this, the current crop year, impacting your productivity, your yields in such a positive way? And the second question is about organic sugar. This year, you produced less, or maybe you are selling less, and it's interesting. And my question is actually just a provocation. I want to hear more from you about the sales of organic sugar because of the whole tariff situation.
In organic sugar, when you look at your actual price, it doesn't seem to be so different from the track record. So I believe that organic sugar still has a very good contribution margin. Since your IPO, we talked a lot about that. So I'd like to know more about that, about the sales and the prices of organic sugar, because it seems to me that it is as good as it's always been. Thank you.
Thank you, Duarte, for your questions. About the drop in the unit cost, let me give you an overview. Last year, our expectation with an average yield, a normal yield across the different units, and expecting also a slight ramp-up in Santa Vitória, according to the renewal of the sugarcane fields, we expected to have 8.3 million tons, but we actually crushed 7.1 million tons.
If 8.3 million tons were the expected number for the past crop year, since we are expanding by 2,000 hectares from 2026 to 2027, then our expected volume should go to 8.5 million or 8.6 million tons. But we don't think that is going to happen. When you have a crop failure, it's difficult to have such a big leap from 7.1 million -8.3 million , if it weren't for the increase in our area. But if we consider equal comparison basis, in order for you to go from 7.1 million -8.5 million , it would be, you know, an optimistic estimate. Because when we have a crop failure, sometimes it takes up to two years for you to recover.
Of course, the first years takes the biggest hit, and then you have to go for another year to go back to the normal level. So we are not expecting to have 8.5 million or 8.6 million anymore, but we are not giving you guidance yet, so. It should be 8 million or 8.2 million . We don't have any guidance to give you yet, because we still have to finish the crop year, but we do expect to have some recovery after the crop failure. And if we look back to our track record, that's what we should expect. And we had very significant irrigation. At Otávio Lage, we had only 6%-7% failure. It could have been much more than that if it weren't for the irrigation. So we truly believe that we are going to have a better crop year. We are going to recover, but we are not excessively optimistic in our projections.
Now, organic sugar. If you look at the past nine months, we sold 63,000 tons compared to 51,000 or 52,000 tons last year. So there, there was an increase of the total sold organic sugar, and the prices were good in comparison to the conventional sugar market. And it's very similar to the price levels that we had at the time of the IPO. And now we don't really know. It's a big question mark, because with all the tariffs. We, we didn't really have any problems with the tariffs this year in selling our sugar, but the entire sector is fighting to revert it. And so we don't end up losing market over the years. To improve production of organic sugar, it takes four years.
But, the tariffs also inhibit consumption, and it, and it is not helping anyone. In the U.S., they consume 300,000 tons, and they only produce 15,000-20,000 tons. The rest is imported, and half of that is from Brazil. So the tariff is bad for the U.S. consumers because they are paying more for organic sugar. It is also bad for U.S. producers because they are not producing any sugar anyway. In the long run, the other exporting countries are favored, for example, Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay. So it doesn't really make any sense from the perspective of the United States to maintain the tariffs. But, you know, we have to wait and see how this unfolds. Organic sugar didn't give us an even better margin because the crop failure was bigger in the organic fields.
Because we had the weather problem and also weed competition. We had a lot of rain at the end of the period, and the weeds grew from that, and we can only operate with manual work or mechanized work, and we were not able to do it.
Okay, thank you.
Excuse me, there are no more questions, so I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Penna for his closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Well, once again, thank you very much for your presence. Thank you for the hard work. To our investor relations team, thank you so much for the hard work. You worked very hard and in a timely way, so as to give time for the people who cover us to have time to take a look at the numbers and materials.
I'd like to thank everybody that works at Jalles', and we are focused on increasing our competitiveness. Our yields have always outperformed the market. We have always been very competitive in sugarcane production, and we are focused also in changing, transforming the operations in Santa Vitória. Our team there is very well-oiled and close-knit, so we believe that we are going to have a very good progress over the coming years there at Santa Vitória, so that Santa Vitória contributes even more to the company as a whole. So thank you very much, and see you in our next earnings call. Thank you so much. Have a good one.
This concludes Jalles' earnings call for today. Thank you very much. Have a good day.