SINGAPORE: A few cargoes of Thai white sugar were sold at premiums to London futures this week, while rising demand from Indonesia could push up the value of raw sugar for next year's delivery, dealers said on Tuesday.
Thai sugar crushing starts again in November or December and runs through April, but trading houses have already quoted premiums for raw sugar from the new season. Thai whites from the current season are still being sold to buyers in Southeast Asia.
"Refined sugar has been done at between $55 and $60 over London. It's quite expensive but small parcels have been sold to Vietnam or consumers in Indonesia, which still hold import licences," said a dealer in Singapore.
"Usually demand starts to creep up during this time of the year. There's buying interest for raws at 50 points premiums, but traders want to sell at 60 to 70 points."
Thai white sugar for this year's delivery was quoted at $40 to $60 to London's December contract last week, when Thai high polarisation, or hipol, raws from the crop which has yet to be crushed stood at premiums of 60 to 70 points to New York's March contract.
Two other dealers said March/May Thai raws were quoted at as high as 90 point premiums this week, adding that Indonesia was in the market to buy raws in small quantities.
Indonesia has issued import permits for 250,000 tonnes of raw sugar to help plug a shortage for industrial use. Indonesia usually buys about 2 million tonnes of raw sugar a year, mainly for industrial use and mostly from Thailand, the world's second-largest exporter.
The 2012/13 sugar crop in Thailand is expected to be slightly lower than the 10.2-10.4 million tonnes forecast earlier due to poor rain, according to Thailand's Office of Cane and Sugar Board (OCSB).
The J-spec variety, or low quality raw sugar favoured by Japanese buyers, was offered at very high premiums of 250 to 400 points to New York's March contract, indicating tight supply. The variety was not offered last week.
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