Sugar prices on volatile road to 30% loss

21.07.2010 12:29 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) — Sugar prices could be heading for a 30% drop, weakened by the return of production to exceeding supply, but thanks to India’s data «casino» investors should not expect a smooth ride, sector leaders have been warned. Pierre-Henri Dietz, analyst a sugar merchant Sucden, warned that New York raw sugar prices will in «the medium term┘ recover a downward trend to $0.12–0.14 cents [per pound] range». The jump in prices to multi-decade highs in February was a «likely over-reaction» to the 2009–10 hiccups in top producers Brazil and India which gave the world a second successive shortfall in output, which fell 8m tonnes below demand. And a rise of about 6m tonnes in production in both Brazil and India this year would return world production into surplus of 7m tonnes, the type of balance which had historically been associated with weak prices. Separately, trading house ED&F Man pegged the world sugar surplus at 3.3m tonnes in 2010–11, after a deficit pegged at 2.3m tonnes the year before. However, Mr Dietz warned that the market still faced the potential of a rough ride from India, whose sugar crop statistics faced the market with «a casino», thanks to the unreliability of information on factors such as cane plantings and yields. «There are uncertainties in Indian statistics,» he told the World Association of Beet and Cane Growers conference, adding that these had a «real impact on the market». In 2008–09, when investors had expected sugar production of 20.7m tonnes, it had turned out nearly 30% lower, while last year output beat initial expectations by 19%. Furthermore, the size of India’s swings in sugar production was «becoming too large for┘ the sugar market» which «will remain volatile given this risk». His warnings of volatility were echoed by Vincent Godier, head of soft commodities and agriculture at Credit Agricole, who advised investors: «Fasten your seatbelts.» «After a consolidation phase that should lead us to the 2011–12 campaign when the volatility should stabilize, we anticipate a come back of violent swings in the sugar markets,» he said, noting the growing interest of non-commercial investors in the sweetener. Raw sugar closed up 2.9% at 17.61 cents a pound for October delivery on Monday, with London’s white sugar lot for the same month ending 2.8% higher at $534.00 a tonne.

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