By Luis Andres Henao

    * Analyst sees 8 percent rise in planted area

    * Estimate is among highest of leading consultants

    * Harvest escaped drought but will need abundant rain

 - Brazil´s  2012/13 center-south cane output should rise about a tenth to between 540 million and 560 million tonnes, up from 492 million in the

almost-finished 2011/12 harvest, sugar and ethanol consultant

Job Economia said on Thursday.

 If the upper end of Job´s forecast was achieved, that would restore cane output to around the record level reached in 2010/11, the season before output tumbled due to a mix of bad weather and delays in renewing less productive, ageing plants.

    "There´s potential to repeat the record 2010 crop," Julio Maria Borges, Job Economia president told Reuters, pointing to an estimated 8 percent rise in the total cane-planted area, which would be a key factor behind the recovery, he said.

    "Everything will depend on the climate," he said. The 2012/13 cane harvest will begin around March and analysts say it will need plentiful rains until then. January has had fairly average rains so far following a drier-than-usual December.

    Job´s estimate is a good deal higher than another estimate given on Thursday by Macquarie Bank, which put the 2012/13 crop in the main center-south cane belt at 520 million tonnes.

    Brazil´s  center south grows 90 percent of the cane in the world´s top producer, with Sao Paulo producing the bulk of it. The 2012/13 harvest will begin around March.

   The drop in output last year was the first in a decade of rapid expansion for cane and put a damper on Brazil´s  big ambitions for a sector which turned cane ethanol into a mainstream fuel with millions of flex fuel cars on its roads.