Sao Martinho, Cosan and Santa Cruz have just joined forces to buy Usina Santa Luiza. The acquired company has an annual sugarcane crushing capacity of 1.8 million tonnes, uses 19,000 hectares of cane plantations on leased land and acquires 200,000 tonnes of cane per year from suppliers.

Sao Martinho's currently crushing capacity of 10.3 million tons a year will get another 750,000 tons from this deal, as they have a 42% share. All in all, there does seem to be some consolidation going on in the Brazilian ethanol industry and so I do wonder how many affordable opportunities there will be for the likes of Clean Energy Brazil plc. Since raising $200m from their AIM float in December, they have already earmarked or spent the cash on investments and some would ask how much market appetite there is to give them more funds.

We can only wait and see.