SOFTS-London cocoa hits 46-yr peak; white sugar touches 12-yr top
LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – London cocoa futures on ICE rose to another 46-year high on Thursday, with no hope of supply tightness easing any time soon, while raw sugar touched a 12-year peak.
COCOA
* December London cocoa LCCc2 rose 0.4% to 3,103 pounds per metric ton by 1142 GMT after setting a 46-year high of 3,106 pounds.
* The market has regularly set 46-year highs since late June on tightening supplies and forecasts predicting a third successive global deficit in the coming 2023/24 season.
* Dealers said that near-dated cocoa futures are trading at an increasingly strong premium to further-dated futures all the way through the futures curve, indicating extremely tight near-term supply 0#LCC:.
* December New York cocoa CCc2 rose 0.2% to $3,735 a ton after peaking at a 12-1/2 year high of $3,737.
SUGAR
* October white sugar LSUc1 rose 1.6% to $761.30 a ton, having hit its highest since September 2011 at $762.90.
* Sugar is being driven by concerns that drier than normal weather is likely to curb output in key producers Thailand and India and fears that New Dehli will ban sugar exports in the coming 2023/24 season.
* India’s food secretary, Sanjeev Chopra, on Thursday said the country has 8.5 million tons of sugar stocks, sufficient for more than 3-1/2 months.
* October raw sugar SBc1 settled 1.2% up at 26.85 cents per lb, heading back towards a 4-1/2 month high of 27.26 cents this week.
COFFEE
* December arabica coffee KCc2 fell 1.5% to $1.4975 per lb.
* Brazil shipped 3.35 million 60kg bags of green coffee abroad in August, 33.3% more than a year earlier, industry group Cecafe said.
* Most global coffee companies will not be ready to comply with the European Union’s new law preventing imports of commodities linked to deforestation, a major coffee sector report has found.
* November robusta coffee LRCc2 fell 0.7% to $2,462 a ton.
* Coffee prices in top robusta producer Vietnam edged up slightly this week in sluggish trade ahead of the new harvest, traders said.
(Reporting by Maytaal Angel Editing by David Goodman )
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