Sugar waiting at Brazil’s ports falls 11% in week on dry weather
The amount of sugar waiting to be loaded at the main ports in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, fell 11 percent during the past week as dry weather helped loading, shipping agency Williams Servicos Maritimos Ltda. said, Bloomberg reports.
About 2.5 million metric tons of sugar was ready for loading yesterday at the ports of Recife, Paranagua and Santos, the country’s biggest, data from Recife, Brazil-based Williams Brasil e-mailed yesterday showed. That compares with about 2.8 million tons a week earlier. Most of the sugar was destined for China, Malaysia, Iran and Canada, according to the data.
Dry weather has helped speed up the harvest in Brazil, with sugar-cane production in the center south, the main growing region, rising 3.9 percent in the first half of July, data from industry group Unica showed. Cane output in the last 15 days of July may have been a record, broker Newedge Group in New York estimates. Unica will update harvest progress figures later today, it said in an e-mail yesterday.
“It seems that center south crop is flowing in a good pace and pushing markets down,” Luiz Carlos dos Santos Jr., head of sugar brokerage and operations at SA Commodities in Santos, said in a report e-mailed yesterday.
Demand from importing countries remains “idle” and ships waiting to load sugar at Brazil’s main ports represent previously agreed sales, Naim Beydoun, a broker at Rolle, Switzerland-based Swiss Sugar Brokers, said on Aug. 5.
White, or refined, sugar for October delivery rose 0.5 percent to $592.40 a ton by 11:11 a.m. on NYSE Liffe in London. Raw sugar for October delivery was up 0.8 percent to 21.26 cents a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York.