Liffe sugar higher

Liffe August white sugar closes $8.30 higher at $658.30 a tonne on Friday. Market supported by strong physical demand from North Africa and the Middle East. Liffe September cocoa ended 37 pounds lower at 1,836 pounds a tonne. Market remains on the defensive, weighed by an improved flow of cocoa out of West Africa. Liffe July robusta coffee ended $6 lower at $2,594 a tonne with the market slipping back slightly after performing strongly during the last couple of weeks.
London-based soft commodity markets will be shut on Monday for Britain's Spring Bank Holiday. They will reopen on Tuesday. In sugar, gains in London's white sugar futures prices outpaced raw sugar due to buoyant North African and Middle Eastern physical demand for refined sugar before Ramazan in August, with the prompt whites-over-raws premium rising above $150 per tonne, dealers said.
James Kirkup, director and head of sugar brokerage at ABN Amro in London, said he saw key resistance in ICE July raw sugar futures at 22.95-23.00 cents a lb, underpinned by a slow start to the Brazilian harvest and delays in loadings of new crop sugar at Brazilian ports. "The market is struggling to challenge that level (22.95-23.00)," Kirkup said.
He added that the market could break sharply higher on investor demand if this resistance level was breached. "We feel the current 23/21 cents a lb range will be maintained for the time being," said Nick Penney of brokerage Sucden Financial. ABN Amro/VM Group said in a monthly agri commodities report that the global sugar supply-demand balance is slowly moving into surplus as the cane crush in the centre-south of Brazil progresses.
"Global stocks remain low and weather and logistical issues might prevent a move to a sub-20 cents a lb level," the report said. ICE coffee futures rose, with dealers focused on risks of frost in Brazil. "We're getting close to the start of the frost season in Brazil, July and the beginning of August is when the possibility of a frost is at its highest," a London-based broker said.ABN Amro/VM Group further tightened its supply and demand outlook for the global coffee market on Friday. The monthly report forecast a world 2011/12 coffee surplus of 4.76 million 60-kg bags, down from a surplus of 10.53 million bags the previous year.