Credit: REUTERS/Darren WhitesideUpdates with market activity, comments and closing prices
NEW YORK/LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Arabica futures on ICE rallied on Thursday, heading back toward a recent three-month peak on signs that available supplies in Brazil are shrinking fast.
Raw sugar also closed up.
COFFEE
* March arabica coffee KCc1 settled up 2 cents, or 1.1%, at $1.779 per lb, after touching $1.8420 on Wednesday, its highest since late October.
* Dealers said funds are covering their short positions as physical premiums in top producer Brazil have shot up to their highest in about a decade.
* Also, top producer Brazil's January green coffee exports fell 5% from a year earlier to 169,553 tonnes.
* The International Coffee Organization said coffee exports were down 7.7% in December, mainly due to lower arabica shipments.
* March robusta coffee LRCc1fell $4, or 0.2%, to $2,049 a tonne.
* Trading in top robusta producer Vietnam has resumed after a week-long Lunar New Year break but farmers were reluctant to sell due to steep discounts being offered by buyers.
SUGAR
* March raw sugar SBc1 settled up 0.29 cents, or 1.4%, at 21.66 cents per lb after climbing on Wednesday to a six-year peak of 21.86 cents.
* Logistical bottlenecks in Brazil are on the cards this year as the world's top sugar exporter is harvesting a bumper grain crop just as sugar production is also expected to rise, sugar trader Alvean's chief executive said.
* Mills in India, the world's second-largest sugar exporter, have produced 21.6 million tonnes of the sweetener since the current season began on Oct. 1, up 6% year-on-year.
* Still dealers said the market overall is lowering its sugar output forecasts for India this year, boosting prices, which have at the same time become technically overbought.
* March white sugar LSUc1 rose $4.10, or 0.7%, at $566.80 a tonne.
COCOA
* March New York cocoa CCc1 fell $9, or 0.3%, to $2,583 a tonne.
* Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast have slumped since the beginning of the year as erratic and insufficient rainfall hit crop output, exporters and farmers said.
* March London cocoa LCCc1 slipped 12 pounds, or 0.6%, to 2,012 pounds per tonne.
(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira and Maytaal Angel; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Kirsten Donovan)
((marcelo.teixeira@tr.com; +1 332 220 8062; Reuters Messaging: marcelo.teixeira.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net - https://twitter.com/tx_marcelo))
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