NY sugar and cocoa finish strong, coffee dips

Raw sugar futures soared to close up nearly 4 percent on Wednesday, lifted in part by the strong crude oil market, while U.S. cocoa futures corrected higher.

RAW SUGAR

* The benchmark May raw sugar contract surged 1.12 cents, or 3.8 percent, to finish at 30.38 cents per lb.
 

* Analysts said surging oil prices, which would tempt top grower Brazil to use more cane to produce the alternate fuel ethanol, gave the sweetener a boost.
* "We're getting a little bit of a pop in from the oil market," said Sterling Smith, an analyst at brokers Country Hedging Inc in St. Paul, Minnesota.
* Traders said if more cane is used to churn out ethanol, it would further tighten supplies in the market.
* The tightness was underscored by news that merchant Czarnikow raised its forecast for a global sugar deficit in 2010/11 to 3.7 million tonnes. [ID:nLDE7202B0]
COFFEE
* May arabica coffee futures rose 0.25 cent to close at $2.6955 per lb, in an inside day.
* Market was quiet and choppy as tight supplies continued to underpin the market - dealers.
* May remained within sight of last week's 34-year high of $2.7840 per lb - traders.
* Indonesia's robusta coffee shipments from the main growing areas in Sumatra island nearly tripled last month versus a year ago as exporters turned to inventories to fulfill old contracts, but concerns over harvests persisted.
* Robusta coffee in Vietnam edged up nearly 1 percent in the past week to a fresh all-time high, but failed to stir up trading on both export and domestic markets. [ID:nL3E7E20A6]
COCOA
* Benchmark May cocoa futures rose $44 to finish at $3,664 per tonne, an inside day and within sight of Tuesday's intraday peak and 32-year high of $3,712.
 

* Quiet session of speculative buying following Tuesday's extremely volatile day when the market spiked lower, following a high-volume move lower on the exchange-traded note market, that resulted in some trades being canceled.
 

* May premium to July widened to $55, from $47 on Tuesday.
 

* Explosions rocked the southern Abidjan suburb of Koumassi overnight and on Wednesday, as fighting between insurgents seeking to oust Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo and security forces spread to new areas of the main city.

* Concern about supplies, despite the widely expected global surplus, due to the export ban in top grower Ivory Coast, lifted the market - traders. 

source: https://portal.hpd.global.reuters.com/