Sugar Trade Quiet On Us Cane Refiners Meeting

Asian sugar markets will remain quiet this week with many participants sidelined by the US Cane Sugar Refiners' Association annual dinner in New York on Wednesday, traders in Japan and Hong Kong said.

But the firmer London white sugar market may encourage China to accelerate its tolling, Tokyo traders said.

Thai raw sugar premiums for May/July delivery were almost unchanged from last week at 0.55/0.60 cents a pound (bid/offer) over New York's Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange (CSCE) May futures on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

July/September deliveries were quoted at 0.47/0.57 cents. Physical business may be quiet this week, as most players are gathering in New York, a sugar trader in Tokyo said.

 

Traders were still watching whether US trade house Cargill would find buyers for Brazilian and Central American raw sugar, adding that it was trying to sell to Russian refiners.

Some traders cited talk that Cargill was pushing up the London white sugar market intentionally, which would benefit the Russian refiners.

They'll do what's necessary for their customers, another Tokyo-based trader said. Last week, talk that Cargill would find buyers for more than 300,000 tonnes of Brazilian and Central American raw sugar may have underpinned positive sentiment in the New York sugar market, traders said.

Brazilian raw sugar was unlikely to head to Asia given adequate supplies from Thailand to markets like Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and tolling to China, Hong Kong traders said, noting that Brazilian sugar would be at a premium to Thai sugar.

China may boost their tolling business if the world white sugar market stays strong, another Japanese trader said. But domestic stock levels and local raw sugar prices indicated China was unlikely to buy raw sugar actively for a while, he said.

(Import) demand is very weak, said one senior China-based sugar trader. Other traders said import licences for domestic consumption had yet to be issued. Prices within China were becoming skewed, traders said.

In south China, white sugar prices ex-factory were said stuck between 3,950 yuan ($476) and 4,000 yuan ($482) per tonne, largely unchanged from previous weeks, sources said.

But wholesale sugar prices in north China were heard inching up as stocks of fine-grained sugar and high-moisture sugar were depleted.