Coffee rose to the highest price in almost a month in London on concern about potential limits on supply from Vietnam, the world’s biggest grower of robusta beans. Sugar prices climbed. The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association has yet to make an estimate of production in the Southeast Asian nation. The lack of forecasts before the harvest that usually starts in November is likely to drive prices up, said Andrea Thompson, an analyst at researcher CoffeeNetwork. “There’s this window of opportunity in the next few weeks, as fundamentally there’s a tight, limited supply of crop at the minute,” Belfast, Northern Ireland-based Thompson said. “If there’s going to be an upside, it’s going to be now.” Robusta coffee for November delivery gained $18, or 1.1 percent, to $1,714 a metric ton at 10 a.m. on NYSE Liffe. Prices touched $1,727, the highest level since Aug. 24. Coffee crops in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, may be hurt by hailstorms next week as a cold weather front approaches major producing regions, Expedito Rebello, head of research at the government’s Meteorology Institute, said yesterday. “The combination of high temperature and a cold front may cause a thermal shock and raise chances of hailstorms,” Rebello said. Arabica Gains Arabica beans for December delivery advanced 1.85 cents, or 1 percent, to $1.818 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. “It’s very much a weather market for arabica,” said Thompson. Sugar gained for a second day on supply concern stemming from a drought in Brazil’s Center South, the world’s largest cane-growing region. On the coast, excess rain has prompted record backlogs of ships waiting to export sugar at the port of Santos, the nation’s largest. “The market has been moving higher recently on fears that an extended drought in central-south Brazil could severely affect sugar production next year,” Jonathan Kingsman, managing director of Lausanne, Switzerland-based researcher and broker Kingsman SA, said by e-mail today. White, or refined, sugar for December delivery rose $6.10, or 1 percent, to $613.10 a ton in London. Raw sugar for March delivery climbed 0.19 cent, or 0.8 percent, to 23.38 cents a pound in New York. Cocoa for December delivery slipped 0.1 percent to 1,884 pounds ($2,944) a ton on NYSE Liffe. In New York, cocoa for December delivery was little changed at $2,763 a ton. To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Kay in London at ckay5@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

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