Thai sugar premiums are likely to stay steady over the next few days with Indonesia and Bangladesh among the few buyers expected, traders said on Monday.
Bids for Thai white sugar premiums for August-September shipment were at $21 over London prices with no offers on Monday.
"Trading firms, including Tate & Lyle, Louis Dreyfus, Cargill and E D & F Man, have been seeking to buy white sugar," said one exporter. Thailand is one of Asia's major sugar exporters.
Its key buyers are Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia. "One trader contacted me this seeking to buy 2,000 tonnes of Thai white sugar for Bangladesh for prompt shipment," said another official of a large exporting firm.
Exporters offered to sell Thai 100 ICUMSA white sugar on Monday steady at $250 per tonne FOB for July shipment. ICUMSA measures the colour of sugar and the lower the ICUMSA level the higher the degree of whiteness.
ICUMSA 100 is considered consumer-grade sugar. Thai exporters said they would not lower their offered prices, as domestic supplies were limited.
Thailand's 2003/04 crushing season ended on April 30 and supplies were limited because some of its 46 mills would still be refining whites from raw for several months, mainly to meet existing export contracts, traders said.
Thailand started harvesting and crushing the 2003/04 (October-September) cane crop on November 23 last year. Late rain delayed the start of the 2003/04-crop year by about one month.
Thai cane production in the crop year to September 2004 was 64.48 million tonnes, down from a record high of 74.07 million tonnes in the previous crop year due to drought.
Thailand has 1.98 million tones of sugar left unshaped from the 2003/04-crop year ending September, officials at the Thai Cane and Sugar Board (TCSB) said. No details of whites and raw left unshaped were available as mills were still refining white sugar from raw, they said.
Traders said most of the sugar from the lower-than expected 2003/04 crop would be shipped this year with only a very small volume to be carried over into the next year. Between the start of the crop year and June 25, Thailand shipped 3.1 million tonnes of sugar, of which 1.7 million tonnes were whites and the rest raw, TCSB officials said.
Key buyers included Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. There has been ample rain over the past month in most sugar cane growing areas. Traders expect 2004/05-cane production of between 58-61 million tonnes, down from 64.48 million tonnes in 2003/04.
Some cane in the north-east, which produces about 40 percent of Thailand's total, has been damaged dye drought.
The TCSB has yet to make any forecast. Only a handful of exporters have offered to sell sugar from the coming 2004/05 crop to international trading firms under forward agreements wfor 2005 shipment, traders said.
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