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Markets

Raw sugar prices rise, arabica coffee extends rebound

Published Updated

SUGAR

*  May raw sugar rose 0.12 cent, or 0.95 percent, to 12.69 cents per lb by 1115 GMT.

* Dealers said recent gains in crude oil prices had provided some support, although producer selling above 12.80 cents was helping keep a lid on the market.

* They continued to keep a close watch on an El Nino weather event, which is linked to dry weather across Asia Pacific and can curb sugar production in that region.

* "A strengthening El Nino could result in lower crops across southeast Asia. Thailand has actually been a little dry and the 2019/20 crop will likely not reach potential," Rabobank said in a market note.

"That same is to be said of crops in the Philippines and Indonesia and, of course, India," the report added.

* Monsoon rains in India are expected to be below normal this year, the country's only private weather forecasting agency said last week.

* May white sugar was up $1.90, or 0.6 percent, at $328.10 a tonne.

* France's farm ministry in its first estimate of the 2019 sugar beet area pegged sowings at 455,000 hectares, down 6.3 pct vs 2018.

COFFEE

* May arabica coffee was up 0.90 cent, or 1.0 percent, at 93.85 cents per lb, pulling further away from last week's 13-year low of 91.25 cents.

* Dealers said the market could climb further in the short term, boosted by technically-driven buying, but the scope for any sustained rebound appeared limited with supplies plentiful and exchange stock well above levels at the same time last year.

* The extra coffee in exchange stocks is primarily from Honduras.

* "The potential for more Honduran coffee turning up at the exchange still weighs heavily on the arabica market," Rabobank said.

* May robusta coffee was up $6, or 0.4 percent, at $1,432 a tonne.

COCOA

* May London cocoa fell 25 pounds, or 1.4 percent, to 1,770 pounds a tonne.

* Above average rainfall last week in most of Ivory Coast's cocoa regions should boost the April-September mid-crop but strong winds are worrying, farmers said on Monday, after weeks of dryness.

* May New York cocoa was down $38, or 1.6 percent, at $2,392 a tonne.

Copyright Reuters, 2019