LONDON: Coffee futures slid to fresh multi-year lows on Monday, weighed by surpluses, while ICE raw sugar ticked down as traders assessed damage from an Oct. 18 warehouse fire in Santos, Brazil.
Cocoa futures on ICE eased, with downside limited by prospects for a global deficit.
ICE arabica coffee futures sagged to a fresh four-and-a-half-year low of $1.070 per lb, and were down 0.85 cent, or 0.8 percent, to $1.0825 per lb at 1502 GMT.
Liffe January robusta coffee lost $20, or 1.3 percent, to $1,518 a tonne, a more than three-year low.
Despite a global surplus of robusta coffee, certified stocks are expected to decline further when the exchange publishes updated data on Thursday.
"Stocks will be down because nothing has been graded. Something has to give," a European analyst said.
"What would normally happen is that you would see the nearby premium go to a level where it attracted coffee from origin, or people were prepared to give up coffee that they have, and that clearly isn't happening."
Liffe's January futures contract traded at a $7 premium to March but dealers said it would need to widen significantly to attract coffee for grading.
SUGAR DIPS
ICE March raw sugar futures fell 0.11 cent, or 0.6 percent, at 18.92 cents per lb, erasing gains that followed news of the fire at Copersucar's terminal in Santos on Oct. 18, which dominated talk during Brazil sugar week.
One analyst cut 2013/14 Brazilian production estimates due to the fire's impact on exports and concerns over rainfall.
"If Brazilians cannot ship sugar because they have lower estimates, it's good news for Thailand, for Australia, for India, for Pakistan," the analyst said.
"It's unlikely that within six months Copersucar can rebuild its capacity."
December white sugar on Liffe fell $3.20, or 0.6 percent, to $500.10 a tonne.
Despite the weakness in prices on Monday, sugar has been one of the best performing commodities on a spot price basis since the end of June.
"We believe this strength has been triggered by a shift in fundamentals," Deutsche Bank said in a note, pointing to a shrinking global surplus, rising demand and shifting speculator positioning.
In cocoa, the ICE December contract fell $27, or 1 percent, to $2,686 a tonne, not far from Tuesday's more than two-year high of $2,780, buoyed by strong demand and expectations of a deficit.
Dealers eyed the latest port arrivals in top grower Ivory Coast, with exporters estimating around 57,000 tonnes of beans were delivered to the Abidjan and San Pedro ports last week, up 21,000 tonnes year-on-year.
"We're basing arrivals on exporters' estimates and those estimates were proven to be wrong last year," the analyst said, advising traders to await government verification.
London March cocoa was down 18 pounds, or 1 percent, to 1,700 pounds per tonne.
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