The refined sugar variety was $121.51 a metric ton more expensive than raw sweetener on Tuesday. That compares with $110.97 a ton two weeks earlier. Sugar prices in India climbed to the highest in 18 months because of a delay to the monsoon rains, Green Pool Commodity Specialists Pty Ltd., a researcher based in Brisbane, Australia, said in a weekly report.
"High internal prices in India may divert sugar from exports," Nick Penney, a senior trader at London-based broker Sucden Financial Ltd, said in a report.
India's monsoon, which brings more than 70 per cent of the country's annual rainfall, was 22 per cent lower than a 50-year average since June 1, the weather bureau said July 15. A similar rainfall deficit in 2009 resulted in output there falling by 5 million tons, according to Paul Bannister, head of the sugar brokerage at Marex Spectron Group in London.
Wet weather has delayed the harvest in Brazil's centre south, the main growing region of the world's top producer. Brazil's white sugar output is set to be smaller in the 2012-13 season as producers will focus on making products that demand less time, such as raw sugar and hydrous ethanol, Luis Roberto Pogetti, chairman of Copersucar SA, owner of mills in Brazil, said last month.
