Liffe sugar higher

Liffe August white sugar closed $4.20 higher at $607.00 a tonne on Monday. Dealers eyed a cancelled tender from Egypt due to high prices. Liffe July cocoa ended 2 pounds lower at 1,869 pounds a tonne, consolidating as the resumption of Ivory Coast exports weighed.
Liffe July robusta coffee ended $54 lower at $2,473 a tonne, with prices remaining vulnerable to risk-averse investor sentiment. Sugar futures consolidated, with dealers talking of a bearish mood at last week's Singapore Kingsman sugar conference and noting Egypt's state-owned Sugar and Integrated Industries Company (SIIC) on Monday cancelled a tender to buy 50,000 tonnes of raw sugar for June shipment due to high prices.
Another tender to buy 50,000 tonnes for September shipment was postponed, a SIIC official told Reuters, adding the tender could take place on Thursday or early next week. Dealers said the bearish view from the Singapore event was due to bigger-than-expected Thai output, expectations that India could authorise further unrestricted sugar exports, and slack Middle Eastern and North African physical demand for the sweetener due to political turmoil in the regions.
However, a growing lineup of vessels at Brazilian sugar ports and terminals due to a lack of availability of prompt physical sugar early in the harvest in the centre-south of Brazil, was supportive of prices. "The congestion makes it difficult for those who have commercial obligations to fulfil for May shipment," one European trade source said.
Nick Penney of brokerage Sucden Financial said, "With the dollar stronger and commodities in general still suffering the jitters, we suspect sugar will struggle to maintain any sustained rally and still feel values will test 20 cents a lb in the near term." He added, "Increases in production in Thailand and potentially India, plus evidence of a reduction in consumption will lead to a substantial surplus in 2011/12." Dealers turned their attention to the New York sugar week for clues to future market direction.
Cocoa futures edged lower, with a resumption of top producer Ivory Coast's cocoa exports after a political crisis limiting gains in prices. Dealers said the near term outlook for cocoa was bearish due to the backlog of cocoa now being released from Ivory Coast after a disputed presidential election led to conflict which stalled exports for several months. "It's surprising that cocoa has remained at such an elevated price for so long and I would imagine that it will fall further," Gary Mead, analyst at VM Group, said.
"I would not be at all surprised to see it below $3,000 a tonne and perhaps around $2,800 a tonne," Mead added. "The risk of supply shortages posed by the political crisis in the Ivory Coast has in effect disappeared now that the dispute has been settled," Commerzbank said in a daily commodities note.
Cocoa deliveries against NYSE Liffe's May futures contract totalled 21,870 tonnes, the smallest delivery over the past year, as dealers said the resumption of Ivorian exports meant there was plenty of cocoa to meet demand. "It's just too volatile, the price swings are nothing to do with supply and demand," VM Group's Mead said, adding that macroeconomic factors including US and eurozone debt were influencing coffee prices.