SINGAPORE: Thai sugar premiums could withstand pressure from rising supply in rival Brazil as demand picks up ahead of the next crushing season, but coffee differentials in Vietnam may widen as the new crop begins, dealers said on Monday.
Sugar deliveries on the October contract on ICE Futures have reached around 11,710 lots, or roughly 594,868 tonnes, traders said, with one trade house seen taking delivery of most, if not all. March is now the front-month contract after October expired last week.
"There's always a bit of a readjustment to physical values in the week or two after a contract expires. With almost 600,000 tonnes delivered, that sugar will be shipped over the next month or two, in addition to new production," said Tom McNeill, director of Green Pool, a commodities analyst in Brisbane.
"All things considered, Thai raws for Jan/Mar and Mar/May are bid and offered around 60 to 80 points. It will take a week or two for all the values to realign themselves, but Thai sugar for first half 2013 has swung into focus, with plenty of interest in a relatively tight range vs March futures."
Sugar exports by Thailand, the world's second-largest exporter after Brazil, are estimated at 7.7 million tonnes in the 2012/13 season, slightly lower than last year because of insufficient rain.
The next Thai crushing season is due to start in October or November, but refiners in Malaysia and Indonesia already secured deals at premiums to New York futures in recent weeks.
Harvest is underway in Brazil, where cane mills in the main growing region produced 3.14 million tonnes of the sweetener in the first half of September, up 13.5 percent from the same period a year ago.
In the coffee market, top robusta producer Vietnam could offer beans at bigger discounts this week as an early harvest begins in the Central Highlands coffee belt. Vietnamese beans were quoted at $20-$30 a tonne below the November contract last week.
Vietnam produced a record 1.6 million tonnes of coffee in the 2011/12 season, and rising supply from producers in the other parts of the world have weighed on prices in London as well as differentials in Indonesia.
"With a bumper Brazilian crop ahead and Central American producers beginning to lower their coffee prices, the pressure in the physical market is capping prices in the futures market," said Lynette Tan, senior investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
In second-largest robusta producer Indonesia, early indications showed the beans were now on par with London's November contract, after being quoted at premiums in recent weeks.
"Exporters are offering beans at par with Liffe for October-November shipment FOB, but buyers' idea would be at -$20 FOB," said a dealer in Indonesia's main growing island of Sumatra. "Harvest in Indonesia is almost finished. 90 percent of the crop has been harvested."
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