Sugar rose to a five-month high in New York and extended gains in London after the U.S. Department of Agriculture signaled limited supplies of the sweetener. The U.S. will allow one extra month for sugar imports for the current fiscal year, through Oct. 31, because of “increased tightness” in the U.S. raw sugar market, the USDA said on its website yesterday. The government last month raised the raw- sugar import quota for the current year by 300,000 short tons. “When they increased the quota, maybe they were not able to obtain the full amount needed,” said Naim Beydoun, a broker and analyst at Swiss Sugar Brokers in Rolle, Switzerland. “Most markets will go up on this news.” Raw sugar for October delivery climbed as much as 3 percent to 20.07 cents a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, the highest price for a most-active contract since March 11. It was up 2.1 percent at 12:02 p.m. London time. White, or refined, sugar for October delivery jumped 3.4 percent to $577.20 a metric ton on NYSE Liffe in London, the seventh consecutive gain and the longest winning streak since June 16. Traders and analysts in a Bloomberg survey yesterday forecast lower sugar prices next week on signs that supplies were becoming more available amid forecasts of a sugar surplus starting in October. The surplus will be 4 million tons in the 2010-11 season, after a shortage in the current marketing year that ends Sept. 30, said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London. ‘Pretty Tight’ “In terms of the global picture, nearby supplies are pretty tight” because of a shipping backlog in Brazil, Unnikrishnan said. While the shipping lineup is getting shorter, making more supplies available, the logjam is still double what it should be at this time of year, she said. “It’s going to take at least a couple of weeks to normalize,” she said. In London, cocoa for September delivery dropped 0.3 percent to 2,060 pounds ($3,191) a ton, the sixth consecutive drop and the longest losing streak since April 9. The September contract is 40 pounds more expensive than the December contract. Robusta coffee for November delivery climbed 0.7 percent to $1,763 a ton. In New York, cocoa for December delivery fell 0.5 percent to $2,879 a ton and arabica coffee for December delivery climbed 0.4 percent to $1.8065 a pound. To contact the reporter on this story: Claudia Carpenter in London at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net.

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