Cocoa futures fall on signs of waning demand, sugar recovers

(Adds comments and closing prices)

NEW YORK, Jan 16 (Reuters) –

Cocoa futures on ICE closed sharply lower on Thursday after data on fourth-quarter demand for the chocolate ingredient came in worse than expected.

White sugar rallied off Wednesday’s three-year low meanwhile.

* London cocoa futures ​settled down 217 pounds, or 2.5%, to 8,529 pounds per metric ton.

* New York cocoa futures dropped 2.9% to $10,502 a ton.

* Europe’s fourth-quarter cocoa grind, a measure of demand, fell 5.4% from a year earlier, industry data showed, while Asia’s fourth-quarter cocoa grind fell 0.52%.

* Dealers said the data was worse than expected, and that the market was now awaiting U.S. figures for further clues on the extent to which high prices are curbing demand for cocoa.

* Cocoa processing in Brazil, the world’s fifth-largest chocolate market, fell 5.5% in the fourth quarter.

* Limiting losses in cocoa was news that companies exporting from top cocoa grower Ivory Coast were overpaying suppliers where necessary to meet their targets because production for the 2024/25 season has been lower than forecast.

* March white sugar settled up $12.50, or 2.6%, at $485.00 a ton after hitting a low of $470.50 on Wednesday, the weakest level since September 2021.

* Shares in Indian sugar mills surged earlier after local media reports that the government is preparing for a final decision on proposed ethanol price hikes.

* Ethanol is made mostly from sugarcane in India, so increased production of the biofuel comes at the expense of sugar output.

* Raw sugar rose 2.2% at 18.41 cents per lb, after hitting a 4-1/2-month low of 17.92 cents on Wednesday.

* Arabica coffee fell 1% to $3.2715 per lb, having settled up 2.6% on Wednesday.

* The coffee market remains focused on the extent to which dry weather last year will curb this year’s Brazilian crop.

50.4 million 60-kg bags of coffee in 2024, Cecafe said on Wednesday, though shipments

from a year ago and the coffee industry group

does not expect record exports in 2025

* Robusta coffee fell 0.5% at $4,889 a ton.

* Coffee prices in top Robusta producer Vietnam slipped this week as farmers released more beans ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, traders said. (Reporting by Maytaal Angel and Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Mohammed Safi Shamsi)