By Claudia Carpenter Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Robusta coffee rose to a one-week high in London during a lull in supplies before the next harvest in Vietnam, the largest grower of the beans. Vietnam’s harvest usually starts in November and Indonesia’s crop was delayed because of rain, according to Andrea Thompson, an analyst at CoffeeNetwork in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Vietnam’s crop will be unchanged from last season at 20 million bags, according to the researcher. “There is a window of six weeks” before the new Vietnamese crop, Thompson said. “People are waiting for new estimates of the 2010-11 season.” Robusta coffee for November delivery climbed $21, or 1.3 percent, to $1,650 a metric ton at 11:36 a.m. on NYSE Liffe after touching $1,653, the highest price since Sept. 8. CoffeeNetwork will probably update its crop forecasts in mid- October, Thompson said. For the 2010-11 season starting Oct. 1, robusta and arabica bean production will top demand, CoffeeNetwork estimates. In the current season, arabica was in shortage and robusta had a surplus, Thompson said. Indonesia’s harvest will rise to 9.4 million bags from 9 million bags in 2009-10 and India’s crop will swell to 5.1 million bags from 4.9 million bags, she said. Arabica coffee for December delivery fell 0.4 percent to $1.933 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. Deliveries Due NYSE Liffe’s October white-sugar and September cocoa futures contracts expired yesterday. October sugar probably had a delivery equal to 77,000 tons, according to Swiss Sugar Brokers. The sweetener was “most probably” from Brazil, Naim Beydoun, a broker at Rolle, Switzerland-based Swiss Sugar Brokers, wrote in a report today. The previous delivery in July was equal to 82,500 tons, according to information on NYSE Liffe’s website. White, or refined, sugar for December delivery climbed 0.2 percent to $594.40 a ton on NYSE Liffe. Raw sugar for March delivery declined 1.1 percent to 22.49 cents a pound on ICE. A backlog of ships waiting to move sugar out of Brazil, the world’s largest producer, is easing, signaling slowing demand, according to Beydoun. Vessels are ready to load almost 2.9 million tons of sugar, down from about 3.1 million tons a week ago, he said. Cocoa for December delivery rose 1.4 percent to 1,879 pounds ($2,930) a ton on NYSE Liffe. The December cocoa contract on ICE climbed 1.6 percent to $2,733 a ton. To contact the reporter on this story: Claudia Carpenter in London at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net.

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