White sugar futures on ICE rose on Monday, on light buying partly fuelled by signs of reduced production in India, while robusta coffee slipped in thin trade.
US soft commodity markets were closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday and will reopen on Tuesday.
March white sugar settled up $1.60, or 0.5 percent, at $354.70 a tonne, after climbing to a session high of $355.40 a tonne.
Last week, prices hit $355.80 a tonne, their highest in nearly two and a half months.
Dealers said light speculative buying was lending support on Monday, partly fuelled by signs that India, the world's biggest consumer of sugar, may be on course to produce less sugar than previously expected.
Sugar output in India is expected to fall 2.5 percent to 30.7 million tonnes in the season that began in October.
"In late summer last year, many observers had been predicting a new record production of up to 35 million tons," Commerzbank said in a note. "In the meantime, dry conditions and crop diseases have given rise to a more sober appraisal."
However, high stocks mean India remains well supplied and the country is likely to continue exporting to the world market, dealers said.
There were also signs of improving conditions in other producing regions, including the European Union, which was limiting the potential for gains. "Estimates for the current EU crop have been improving, and expectations of a reduction in beet area have been falling," Marex Spectron said. "So estimates for this and next year's crop look a bit better."
March robusta coffee settled down $6, or 0.4 percent, at $1,538 a tonne.
Dealers pointed to ample global supplies coupled with lacklustre buying appetite in thin trade. May London cocoa settled down 4 pounds or 0.2 percent at 1,683 pounds a tonne. Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast reached 1.241 mln tonnes between Oct. 1 and Jan 20, exporters estimated on Monday, up about nine percent from the same period last season.
Comments
Comments are closed.