Raw sugar steadies after one-week high; Robusta coffee sinks

LONDON: Raw sugar futures on ICE steadied on Friday as the market consolidated after the previous session's one-week high while Robusta coffee hit a three-month low

SUGAR

* May raw sugar was flat at 12.41 cents per lb at 1525 GMT, having hit a high of 12.69 cents on Thursday.

* Dealers said the market remains range-bound, with rising net short, or sell, positions among speculators seen as supportive, but with swelling Indian production capping any price upside.

* "There's quite a lot of sugar out there. The overall consensus is in our view for a crop of around 32.5 million tonnes in India and 13.5 million tonnes in Thailand," said Marex Spectron options broker Gurdev Gill.

* The sugar market also lacked support on Thursday from the oil market, where prices retreated after briefly touching a 2019 high.

* Stronger oil prices tend to boost sugar by encouraging cane mills in Brazil to produce more ethanol rather than the sweetener.

* Brazil's 2019-20 centre-south cane crop that starts in April is likely to exceed the current season's, the first increase from one crop to another since 2015-16, Agroconsult data showed.

* There is an 80 percent chance of weak El Nino conditions continuing through the northern hemisphere in spring 2019, a US government weather forecaster said.

* The chief financial officer and agricultural director of Tereos Sugar and Energy Brazil are leaving the company, a spokesman said on Thursday.

* May white sugar fell by $0.70, or 0.2 percent, to $338.10 a tonne.

COFFEE

* May arabica coffee was up 0.1 cents, or 0.1 percent, at 97.25 cents per lb, having hit a 13-year low of 94.65 cents on Tuesday.

* May robusta coffee was down $15, or 1 percent, at $1,475 a tonne.

* A dealer said that Robusta coffee was playing catch-up with Arabica, which is poised to head ever lower in the near term amid high global supplies, especially from Brazil.

* Vietnam coffee prices fell this week amid weakness in global robusta, while there was a build-up of supply and muted trade in Indonesia.

COCOA

* May London cocoa was 12 pounds, or 0.7 percent, down at 1,634 pounds a tonne.

* May New York cocoa was down $4, or 0.2 percent, at $2,224 a tonne.

* New York May cocoa is biased to break support at $2,208 a tonne and fall to the next support at $2,170, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.