Insight Focus
Raw sugar futures prices traded sideways last week. Commercial participants have added to their positions. The net speculative position is essentially neutral.
New York No.11 Raw Sugar Futures
Raw sugar futures prices traded sideways last week in the 21-22c/lb range. The market closed at 21.8c/lb on Friday.
Looking at the commercial participants, producers have opened 11.1k lots of short positions, while end-users opened a smaller number of long positions at 3.1k lots.
Over the past week, speculators have added to their long positions by 1.6k lots of longs but have closed out just under 3k lots of short positions.
Spec interest in raw sugar remains minimal as reflected in the net speculative position, which is now essentially neutral at just -62 lots.
The No. 11 forward curve has strengthened towards the front of the curve (Mar’25 – May’26) over the past week and remains in backwardation.
London No.5 Refined Sugar Futures
The No. 5 refined sugar futures traded between 547-553.5 USD/tonne for most of the week and closed at 561 USD/tonne on Friday.
Speculators have closed out 736 lots of long positions, reducing the net spec position to 29,062 lots.
No.5 Open Interest
The No.5 refined sugar futures curve has strengthened across the board.
White Premium (Arbitrage)
The H/H white premium traded between 80-83.2 USD/tonne, over the past week and closed at 80.2 USD/tonne on Friday.
Many re-export refiners need around USD 105-115/tonne above the No.11 to profitably produce refined sugar. The current white premium is below this level, signalling to toll refiners to slow their operations.
For a more detailed view of the sugar futures and market data, please refer to the appendix below.
No.11 (Raw Sugar) Appendix
No.11 Open Interest
No.5 (White Sugar) Appendix
No.5 Spreads
White Premium Appendix
