LONDON: Arabica coffee futures on the ICE exchange hit a fresh 10-week low on Wednesday given benign weather in Brazil and surging exports, while raw sugar hit a two-week trough.
COFFEE
Arabica coffee fell 0.7percent to USD2.8170 per lb at 1147 GMT, having hit a 10-week low of USD2.8120 on Monday. “ICE stock levels remain low, but the market is being pressured by reports of strong exports out of Brazil and good growing weather for the 2027 crop,” said broker ADMIS.
Exchange arabica stocks are currently at a 27-year low of 217,646 bags, data shows. Against that, top grower Brazil’s green coffee exports in the first two weeks of September stood at a daily average of some 13,500 metric tons, up 51.5percent, data showed.
Meanwhile, the weather in Brazil has been favourable of late and new crop flowering is progressing well, dealers said. Robusta coffee fell 1.8percent to USD3,418 a metric ton.
SUGAR
Raw sugar slipped 0.3percent to 17.88 cents per lb. Oil prices slipped, tempting cane mills in Brazil and India to produce more sugar and less ethanol, a cane-based biofuel.
Sugar has lost some ground after its recent run-up to a 16-month high, but remains underpinned by potential production declines in India, the European Union and Thailand, dealers said.
France is set for its smallest sugar beet harvest since the 1970s after heatwaves and drought shrivelled crops in the EU’s biggest agricultural producer, the farm ministry said. October white sugar fell 0.4percent to USD524.20 a ton.
The front month white sugar contract expired on Tuesday, down 0.5percent at USD522.30. Deliveries against the expiration of the October contract totalled 9,987 lots, or 499,350 metric tons, according to preliminary information from sugar traders.
COCOA
London cocoa was little changed at £4,476 per ton. Cocoa buyers in No. 2 grower Ghana are owed about 4 billion cedi (USD349 million) by regulator COCOBOD for last season’s crop and want it paid before the new crop year begins, an industry body told Reuters.
Ivory Coast’s cocoa grind, a measure of demand, rose 21.3percent year-on-year in August to 47,646 metric tons of beans, industry data from the world’s top cocoa grower showed. New York cocoa fell 0.3percent to USD6,029 a ton.