Liffe May white sugar rises $17.60 to close at $686.20 a tonne on Thursday on technical buying. Dealers saw downside price risk because more of the crop than expected still awaited harvest in Thailand, and India could soon approve exports.
Liffe May robusta coffee ends up $128 at $2,615 a tonne, having earlier touched a 3-year peak of $2,661 a tonne. London's May robusta contract built up a substantial premium over the July, reflecting doubts about the amount of available deliverable coffee against the May contract.
Liffe May cocoa ends up 24 pounds at 2,126 pounds a tonne, underpinned by violence in top producer Ivory Coast. Sugar surged due to increased cash buying and cocoa was propped up by the violent power struggle which has virtually stopped bean exports in top cocoa producer Ivory Coast. "Coffee's rally is all off London," said Jack Scoville, senior analyst with brokers The Price Group in Chicago. "That has taken New York (arabicas) up with it."
A London-based broker said the robusta situation is not helped any by the fact that the harvest of top robusta producer Vietnam is done and coffee supplies from that country are "in strong hands." Analysts said that with the weekend coming up, the level of nervousness remained high after a killer quake and tsunami hammered Japan and the crisis has not abated due to the nuclear emergency in the Asian country.
Scoville said the Japanese disasters would continue to hang over the market through this weekend. Sugar futures barrelled higher as well, inspired by talk that cash buying has picked up especially since raws plunged from levels over 30 cents a lb to approach 25 cents.
Dealers said though that the price risk for sugar futures was to the downside, because more of the crop than expected still awaited harvest in Thailand, and India could soon approve exports. Also, Brazil, the world's top sugar producer and exporter, is expecting a large harvest in the main centre-south growing region in 2011/12.