LONDON: Raw sugar futures on ICE steadied on Thursday, consolidating gains seen in the prior session after data showed a drop in Brazilian output in the first half of this month.
SUGAR
October raw sugar was down 0.04 cents, or 0.3pc, at 12.02 cents per lb at 1325 GMT, having closed above 12 cents on Wednesday for the first time in more than a week.
Sugar output from Brazil’s centre-south region slumped 19pc in the first half of July, cane industry group Unica said. It said about 400,000 hectares of cane fields were affected by frosts earlier this month, which may impact yields.
“The Unica data was definitely more constructive than expected. I suspect people are revising down their sugar production forecasts today,” a dealer said.
Concerns about adverse weather in India, a top producer, are also underpinning the market. India is likely to get above-average rainfall in the next two weeks after receiving below-average rains in the past two weeks, a weather department official said.
Still, recent large deliveries against July raws and August whites have heightened worries over excess stocks and poor Asian demand even though a market deficit is widely expected next season.
World sugar prices are forecast to rise by the end of this year with a global deficit projected for the 2019/20 season, a Reuters survey of 13 analysts and traders showed.
October white sugar was down $0.7, or 0.2pc, at $320.50 a tonne.
COFFEE
September arabica coffee was down 0.4 cent, or 0.4pc, at $1.0065 per lb, after dipping to a one-month low of $1.0055 on Wednesday.
Ample global supplies have come back into focus as the threat of a crop-damaging Brazilian frost retreats.
Coffee stocks held in European ports rose 0.8pc in May from a month ago, European Coffee Federation data showed.
September robusta coffee was flat at $1,360 a tonne.
Vietnam’s domestic coffee prices fell further from a week ago with trading activity expected to remain slow until the 2019/20 crop year.
COCOA
September New York cocoa was down $6, or 0.2pc, at $2,457 a tonne.
New York cocoa prices are forecast to end the year marginally above current levels as the market looks set to flip into deficit in the 2019/20 season, a Reuters poll of 10 analysts and traders showed.
Market chatter continues to be dominated by uncertainty as to how top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana will implement a “living income differential” of $400 a tonne on all cocoa sales contracts for 2020/21.
September London cocoa was down 5 pounds, or 0.3pc, at 1,837 pounds a tonne.