May white sugar ended $3.10, or 0.9 percent, higher at $357.80 a tonne after peaking at $359.40, a 3-1/2 month high for the front month. Dealers said the market was supported by a diminished outlook for sugar production in the key Centre-South region of Brazil this year due partly to a lack of rainfall in January and the first half of this month.
"A relatively poor sugar supply from CS Brazil this year is on the cards," analyst Robin Shaw of Marex Spectron said in a market update. He added, however, that sugar could not sustain a major rally. "There is simply too much extra supply which will occur if sugar prices rally substantially - much more sugar from CS Brazil if sugar prices are above the ethanol parity, and much more exports out of India if world prices rise," he said.
Some mills in Brazil switch between producing either sugar or biofuel ethanol depending on relative profitability. May London cocoa closed 18 pounds, or 1.0 percent, higher at 1,778 pounds a tonne after setting a six-week high of 1,780 pounds.
Dealers said the market was beginning to gather some upward momentum, boosted by both technically-driven buying and some concerns about dry weather in top grower Ivory Coast. "The (technical) indicators are firmly on the front foot," Sucden Financial technical analyst Geordie Wilkes said, adding resistance at 1,800 pounds could be challenged.
Most of Ivory Coast's cocoa growing regions saw no rainfall last week, raising fears for the April-to-September mid-crop, farmers said on Monday. Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast reached 1.442 million tonnes between Oct. 1 and Feb. 17, exporters estimated on Monday, up about nine percent from 1.321 million tonnes in the same period last season.
May robusta coffee settled at an unchanged $1,555 s tonne. Vietnam, the world's top robusta producer, exported 183,693 tonnes of coffee in January, customs data showed on Monday, higher than the government's estimate of 175,000 tonnes.