SOFTS-Robusta coffee closes higher, cocoa and sugar also climb

Includes closing prices, adds comments

NEW YORK/LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Robusta coffee futures on ICE closed up on Tuesday, after hitting a four-year high in the prior session, while sugar and cocoa prices also climbed, buoyed by broad-based gains in commodity markets.

COFFEE

* November robusta coffee LRCc2 closed $8 up at $2,160 a tonne. The benchmark second position set a four-year high of $2,178 on Monday.

* The market continued to derive support from a pick-up in demand for robusta coffee linked to the high cost of arabica beans and disruptions to the flow of supplies from Vietnam due to a shortage of container freight.

* December arabica coffee KCc1 rose 0.75 cent to $1.8335 per lb.

* Lower production in Brazil, driven partly by drought and frost, has helped to tighten arabica supplies.

* Brazil’s coffee crop is expected to drop 25.7% this year compared with the record 2020 season, when 63 million bags were produced, according to Conab.

* Brazil’s Cooxupe, the world’s largest coffee co-op and the country’s No.1 exporter, expects significant damage to the 2022 crop from frosts that hit fields in July.

SUGAR

* October raw sugar SBc1closed up 0.11 cent to 18.97 cents per lb, partially recovering from the fall in the previous session.

* Dealers said the market was heavily influenced by trends in broader financial markets with risk appetite boosted by sentiment that contagion from the distress of debt-saddled Chinese developer Evergrande would be limited. MKTS/GLOB

* “The recent drop in raw sugar prices made specs liquidate longs. If market doesn’t manage to go above 19-19.5 c/lb they shall keep on liquidating – bearish on short/mid term,” said sugar analyst Claudiu Covrig in a note.

* December white sugar LSUc1 rose $3.30 to $501.20 a tonne.

COCOA

* December New York cocoa CCc1 closed up $12 at $2,605 a tonne.

* The market was supported by trends in wider financial market and expectations that supplies could tighten in the upcoming 2021/22 season driven mainly by a drop in output in number two producer Ghana.

* December London cocoa LCCc1 rose 14 pounds to 1,816 pounds a tonne​.

(Reporting by Nigel Hunt and Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Anil D’Silva)

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