MURUGAVEL

Indian sugar stockpiles will fall to their lowest in over a decade next year as consumption outstrips supply, but will still be sufficient for the world's top sugar consumer, India's sugar millers said on Friday. Drought in the past two years in India and in the world's second-largest sugar producer Thailand has shrivelled sugar cane and cut supply. International sugar futures reach a near four-year high in late June. Indian output in the 2016-2017 crop year should fall to around 23.3 million tonnes, down from 25.1 million tonnes the year earlier due to the drought, said Indian Sugar Mills Association President Tarun Sawhney in an interview with Reuters in Bangkok on Friday. With consumption at 26 million tonnes, India would draw down around 2.7 million tonnes from stocks to leave them at 4.3 million tonnes at the end of the 2016-2017 crop year, Sawhney said.That was around two months of consumption, the lowest since 2005, and a level lower than India ha...

Sugar, once one of the sweetest areas of the commodities sector, is now turning bitter. Prices have hit a seven-year low as key drivers for the commodity, which can be used either to sweeten food or to produce ethanol biofuel, have gone into reverse. Such is the state of the sugar cane market that local media in India have reported a rise in the number of sugar cane farmers committing suicide in the country’s main cane-producing belt because processing mills are refusing to pay producers pre-agreed prices. Globally, sugar prices are trading at around 10.6 cents per pound. Despite farmers cutting back production and bad weather adversely affecting harvests in some areas, the market is expected to remain in surplus into next year. This is happening even though food manufacturers are using more sugar to make products such as lemonade, ketchup and chocolate, according to Commerzbank research. However, the International Sugar Organization (ISO) published new forec...