Faced with a weak market, the sugar industry was laser-focused during New York Sugar Week on possible drivers to rescue prices from near five-year lows.The annual gathering of analysts, producers and traders comes as global raw sugar prices have been under steep pressure over the past year due to ample global production and sluggish demand growth. Key to prospects for recovering prices were the impacts of Brazilian gasoline prices and a potential El Niño weather pattern on sugar production.Large cane crops from top grower Brazil have pressured the market both last year and this year — but the industry is now expecting more of that to go into fuel, instead of sugar. Still, the outlook for that percentage, which can also rapidly shift depending on pricing for the two products, was mixed.Estimates for the so-called sugar mix ranged from 45% to 48.5%, down from last year’s record 50.4%, according to Mike McDougall, an analyst at McDougall Global View. Forecasts in the weaker end of that range, if realized, could put the sugar mix at the lowest in at least four years.Prices for both sweetener and fuel have been low, with domestic ethanol prices recently becoming less profitable than sugar. The most-active raw sugar contract has recovered about 10% over the past month after coming close to a 2020 low, but is still trading in a low range.Futures in New York fell as much as 1.8% on Friday to 14.72 cents per pound, while white sugar was down 1.4%.“Sometimes the price of sugar becomes better than the price of ethanol, and they decide — the millers in Brazil — every single week where they would put the mixes of production,” Datagro head of research João Otávio Figueiredo said in a Monday interview.He added that Brazil’s state-controlled oil company is also a factor. “The sugar price is under pressure because we are in the hands of Petrobras now.”Petrobras kept domestic gasoline prices stable even as prices surged more broadly due to the conflict in Iran, leading to a first-quarter earnings miss. The country’s government earlier this week said it would subsidize gasoline, a move that may lower demand for the nation’s 100% ethanol fuel.Petrobras recently raised diesel prices and said it would hike gasoline as well, but hasn’t provided details.The other bullish wild card was the extent to which El Niño could affect production in India, the world’s second-largest producer behind Brazil. The weather pattern, which is expected to take hold later this year, typically brings dryness to the region that can affect cane yields.On the low end of the range, Brazilian consultancy Datagro said it sees Indian production falling 4.6% year-over-year to 27 million tons — contributing to a larger global deficit of 3.17 million tons. Meanwhile, broker StoneX Group, with a much smaller 550,000-ton deficit outlook, said it sees Indian production staying about flat year-over-year. That’s accounting for a “moderate intensity and impact for the Indian crop,” sugar and ethanol senior consultant Rodrigo Martini said in a Tuesday presentation.Any downside for India’s crop is of concern to the market because it increases the odds that the country, which has already been curbing exports to protect its own supplies, will stay out of the global sugar trade.The producer on Thursday banned exports for the rest of the current season through September. That’s a move the market had already been expecting amid a drop in this year’s harvest and an expected El Niño weather pattern, but is also stoking increased discussions over potential restrictions in 2026-27 as well, said Claudiu Covrig, the lead analyst at Covrig Analytics. He maintained his outlook for a global surplus in 2026-27, but said that would change if El Niño “hits hard” in India.Ravi Gupta, a member of the executive board at Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd. in New Delhi, said at Datagro’s event that he doesn’t expect production “to be anywhere lower than this year” given an increase in overall cane acreage. However, the crop “all depend on how the weather comes out with the El Niño, especially the distribution of the rains,” he said.