Raw sugar futures on ICE rallied on Friday, boosted by a surge in oil prices, while robusta coffee set a new two-month low as worries about plentiful supplies persisted. March raw sugar was up 0.40 cent, or 3.2 percent, at 13.04 cents per lb at 1435 GMT, after rising to a session high of 13.06 cents per lb.
Dealers said the market rallied in step with oil prices, which jumped 5 percent as big Middle Eastern producers in OPEC agreed to reduce output. Stronger energy prices boost the competitiveness of ethanol relative to gasoline, bolstering expectations that mills in top grower Brazil will maintain a strong focus on the biofuel rather than switching output back to sugar.
"Sugar is very responsive to rallies in energy prices," said one European dealer. "And with Brazil being so flexible between ethanol and sugar, an oil rally like this is certainly going to trigger a sugar rally too." Upbeat energy markets also pushed prices above key technical resistance levels, dealers said, triggering additional chart-driven speculative buying.
Traded volumes remained relatively thin, however, as market participants were awaiting fresh fundamental signs on global output. March white sugar rose $8.60, or 2.5 percent, to $350.20 a tonne. March robusta coffee fell $3, or 0.2 percent, to $1,560 a tonne after earlier touching $1,556 a tonne, its lowest since early October.
March arabica coffee slipped 0.50 cent, or 0.5 percent, to $1.0545 per lb, hovering above a two-month low of $1.0445 set on Thursday. Both arabica and robusta have been under pressure from speculative selling in recent sessions, partly inspired by expectations of ample supplies going forward.
"All the signs point to a very high Brazilian coffee crop next year, too," Commerzbank said in an update, noting Brazil could see record output for a low-yield year in the two-year crop cycle. March New York cocoa jumped $49, or 2.30 percent, to $2,177 a tonne, also swept up in the broader commodities rally.
Prices fell to an eight-week low of $2,095 earlier this week on fund selling partly driven by worries about ample supplies in top grower Ivory Coast. March London cocoa rose 25 pounds, or 1.6 percent, to 1,595 pounds a tonne. Ivory Coast has revoked the licences of two cocoa exporters which relinquished their contracts after they were denied bank financing, two sources at the country's cocoa marketing board CCC said on Friday.
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