NEW YORK (Reuters) – The global sugar market is projected to have a larger than expected supply surplus in the 2023/24 October to September season due to production recoveries in India and Thailand in the later stages of their crops, broker StoneX said on Thursday.
It projected that global sugar production exceed total demand by 3.88 million metric tons, up from 3.4 million tons seen in February.
StoneX revised up its projection for India’s production by 1.7 million tons to 32.8 million tons, and added 500,000 tons to its estimate for Thailand to 9.1 million tons. Both countries are having a better crop tail, with higher yields in the final stage.
Better than expected production in Asia offset cuts in Mexico and Brazil, the broker said.
StoneX also released a new estimate for the upcoming Brazil’s Centre-South (CS) crop that starts in April. It sharply reduced its view for total sugarcane crush from 622 million tons in January to 602 million tons, saying agricultural yields will fall around 9% due to drier than normal weather.
The broker no longer sees a record sugar production in Brazil’s CS in 2024/25 (April-March) – despite the higher focus on sugar production by the mills – as smaller volumes of cane will prevent the region from exceeding the previous crop’s production.
It sees Brazil’s CS sugar output at 42.3 million tons, down from 43.1 million tons projected in January.
Other analysts expect an even lower production in Brazil at around 40 million tons.
(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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