BLBG: Coffee Rises to 13-Year High on Supply Concern; Sugar Advances
By Chris Kay
Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Coffee rose to a 13-year high in New York on concern about a potential lack of supply. Sugar climbed to the highest price in six months.
Arabica coffee for December delivery advanced as high as $1.9675 a pound on ICE Futures U.S., gaining for a fifth day. The contract was up 1.9 percent at $1.96 at 9:48 a.m. London time. Robusta coffee for November delivery added 3.9 percent to $1,683 a metric ton on NYSE Liffe in London.
Coffee has surged 44 percent this year in New York amid slumping inventories and speculation that too much rain would damage crops in Brazil and Colombia, the world’s biggest arabica producers.
“Fear of supply shortage is bringing more and more speculators on the bandwagon, driving prices up ahead of the upcoming harvest in Colombia and Central America,” Carsten Fritsch, a Commerzbank AG analyst in Frankfurt, said by phone today. “Harvests should be better than last year, and I can’t imagine prices staying at such strong levels for much longer.”
Raw sugar for October delivery rose as high as 21.75 cents a pound on ICE Futures U.S., the highest price since Feb. 22, and was last up 0.3 percent at 21.52 cents. White, or refined, sugar for December delivery advanced 0.4 percent to $560.60 a ton on NYSE Liffe.
The Agriculture Ministry in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar producer, lowered its cane-crop forecast this month because of dry weather. Flooding in Pakistan has destroyed at least $1 billion of crops and killed 10 million head of livestock.
There are “continued worries of dryness in Brazil and damage in Pakistan,” Jake Wetherall, a trader at Rabobank International in London, said by e-mail today.
Cocoa for December delivery fell 0.9 percent to 1,926 pounds ($2,971) a ton on NYSE Liffe. December-delivery cocoa was little changed at $2,723 a ton in New York.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Kay in London at ckay5@bloomberg.net