Robusta coffee futures eased on speculative selling and profit-taking from recent 12-1/2-year highs at midsession on Thursday, while cocoa inched up in choppy trade and sugar was steady in low volumes, dealers said.
Robusta coffee futures were lower with the market's bull run looking to have temporarily run out of steam. Benchmark May was down $5 at $2,769 a tonne at 1242 GMT. The contract rose last week to a peak of $2,813 a tonne, the highest level for the second month since July 1995.
Dealers said hedge selling weighed on the market early, while roaster buying helped the market edge off the day's lows. ICE arabica futures have also lost some momentum after a strong run-up with May down 1.30 cents at $1.6260 a lb. Coffee farmers in Indonesia, the world's fourth-largest producer, are harvesting their beans early in order to benefit from soaring prices.
Dealers said producers in Vietnam were also looking to take advantage of current high prices and differentials had weakened significantly during the last couple of weeks.
London cocoa futures rose slightly in volatile trade and were broadly in line with ICE electronic futures, after touching a five-year high earlier this week. London May up 25 pounds at 1,447 pounds a tonne at 1257 GMT. ICE May cocoa futures at $2,812 per tonne. The London May contract rose to a peak of 1,450 pounds a tonne on Tuesday, a five-year high for the second month, before slipping back to a low of 1,390 pounds on Wednesday.
Key resistance in May remained at 1,450 pounds, while support was 1,390-1,400 pounds, dealers said. Indonesia, the world's third largest cocoa producer, expects higher output of its key agriculture commodities rubber, coffee and cocoa in 2008, an official said on Wednesday, due to good weather and higher prices, which have led to more intensive farming.Sugar steadies
London white sugar futures were steady in light volumes, as the market consolidated below 15-month highs touched earlier this week, dealers said.
May up 40 cents to $386.50 per tonne in low volume of 519 lots. London May whites rose to $400.00 a tonne early on Tuesday, a 15-month high for the front month, before falling sharply.
Brazil's biggest sugar and ethanol group, Cosan, on Wednesday offered shareholders in its locally-listed unit to swap their shares for stocks in a foreign-registered subsidiary in a new attempt to overhaul its structure and gain scale globally. The recent jump in international sugar prices is expected to limit the increase in ethanol output which has been forecast for the 2008/09 season, trading house Czarnikow said on Wednesday.
Brazil's 2007/08 sugar cane crop of 491 million tonnes is expected to more than triple by 2025, as mills race to boost output to meet local and international ethanol demand, a leading analyst said on Wednesday.
Plinio Nastari, president of cane sector analysts Datagro, also said during the F.O. Licht conference on sugar and ethanol in Sao Paulo this week that Brazil's ethanol fuel production would have to grow by 3 billion litres a year through 2025 to keep up with demand.