Arabica coffee sets 7-month low as supplies seen growing

• July arabica coffee settled down 2.8 cents, or 2.8%, at 96.3 cents per lb, a seven-month low.
• July raw sugar settled up 11 cents, or 1.0%, at 10.91 cents per lb, recovering later in the session.
• July New York cocoa settled up $25, or 1.0%, to $2,454 a tonne.

NEW YORK/LONDON: Arabica coffee futures on ICE fell to a seven-month low on Friday weighed by weakening demand and the prospect of increasing supplies.

Raw sugar futures closed up, recovering from earlier losses.

COFFEE

July arabica coffee settled down 2.8 cents, or 2.8%, at 96.3 cents per lb, a seven-month low.

"Worries regarding potential disruptions to harvests in Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia were giving support to the market, but so far we haven't seen major problems," said Fernando Maximiliano, coffee analyst for INTL FCStone.

"After rallying by 25% during March on worries supply from South America would be disrupted, the price has since collapsed once again," Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said in a note.

Maximiliano said that considering good harvests and falling demand due to lockdowns, the surplus in global coffee balance could be bigger than expected.

July robusta coffee settled down $8, or 0.7%, at $1,169 a tonne, with demand for robusta seen more resilient as a higher proportion of the beans are consumed at home.

Vietnam's coffee exports in the first five months of the year were expected to rise by 4.7% from a year earlier to 813,000 tonnes, government data showed on Friday.

SUGAR

July raw sugar settled up 11 cents, or 1.0%, at 10.91 cents per lb, recovering later in the session.

Sugar closed up despite a further weakening of the Brazilian currency on Friday, which dealers say can lead to increasing selling from the country in New York raw sugar futures.

They say there is good demand in the market in a period when supplies from some exporters such as Thailand seem to be limited.

August white sugar settled up $0.70, or 0.2%, at $362.20 a tonne.

COCOA

July New York cocoa settled up $25, or 1.0%, to $2,454 a tonne.

July London cocoa settled down 3 pounds, or 0.2%, to 1,960 pounds per tonne.