By Rattaphol Onsanit
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand, the world’s second-biggest exporter of sugar, produced 1.09 million metric tons of the commodity in the first month of the crushing season, dropping 5.2 percent from last year.
The Southeast Asian country produced 312,916 tons of white sugar and 777,045 tons of raw variety in Nov. 26-Dec. 31 period, the Office of the Cane and Sugar Board, the regulator, said on its Web site. The combined output compares with 1.15 million tons last year when the crushing period began Nov. 23.
The drop ushered in tightening supply in 2009, as Brazil, the largest producer, turns more sugar cane into fuel and India, the second biggest, expects output to drop because of delay in crushing. Global production will fall for the first time since 2004-05, the International Sugar Organization said Nov. 11.
“We will probably have a global deficit this year,” Pornchai Kangvanwanich of sugar broker and research firm Kingsman SA said by telephone in Bangkok today. “Some small mills here may find prices unattractive.”
Raw-sugar futures for March delivery yesterday declined 0.3 percent to 11.82 cents a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. The most-active contract rose 9.1 percent last year, the second- best performer after cocoa in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials.
Thailand’s output was 7.81 million tons last year, according to the Web site. That exceeds 7.3 million estimated by the office at the beginning of the season, as the government increased cane prices to support farmers.
The office forecast output of 7.57 million tons this year, OCSB’s Secretary General Prasert Tapaneeyangkul said in an interview in November.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rattaphol Onsanit in Bangkok at ronsanit@bloomberg.net
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