Adds comments on coffee, updates prices to settlement
NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) - London cocoa futures on ICE hit seven-month peaks on Wednesday as the market remained concerned about a strong or potentially very strong El Nino weather pattern, while raw sugar scaled near two-month peaks tracking oil.
COCOA
* London cocoa LCCc2 settled up £228, or 5.3%, at £4,493 per metric ton, having hit a seven-month high of £4,613.
* "Market participants are wondering where renewed selling pressure in cocoa might come from. At the very least, Cote d'Ivoire is well pre-sold," a dealer said.
* The United Nations weather agency raised its El Nino forecast to "strong" on Friday and warned it could further revise it to "very strong."
* El Nino is especially risky for cocoa. Prices for the chocolate ingredient nearly tripled in 2024 as the West African harvest failed amid a moderate-to-strong El Nino that ran from mid-2023 to mid-2024.
* New York cocoa CCc2 rose 5.1% to $6,052 a ton, having hit a six-month high of $6,224 a ton.
SUGAR
* Raw sugar SBc1 was little changed at 15.11 cents per lb, having earlier hit a near two-month high of 15.39.
* Sugar analyst Michael McDougall said he sees the market heading higher near-term given the risk of still higher oil prices. O/R
* Higher energy prices are bullish for sugar as they boost demand for cane-based biofuels, cutting sugar production.
* In Brazil, a meeting by the country's energy policy council CNPE that could approve a higher ethanol blending rate was again postponed, with no new date set.
* While the adverse impact of El Nino in Brazil and India has paused over the past few days, crop risks associated with the weather pattern are by no means over, McDougall said.
* The global sugar market will be in a modest deficit of 600,000 tons in the 2026/27 season, broker and supply chain services company Czarnikow said.
* White sugar LSUc1 rose 1% to $480.60 a ton.
COFFEE
* Arabica coffee KCc2 settled down 7.8 cents, or 2.5%, at $3.098 per lb, having closed down 9% on Tuesday in a sharp reversal of Monday's stellar 16% surge.
* Dealers said Monday's surge was driven by speculators and that more falls are on the cards as farmers currently harvesting a bumper crop in top grower Brazil step in to sell.
* "I would expect origin (producers) to step in to sell more coffee in size if futures prices begin to stabilize," said Ilya Byzov, a quantitative trader with soft commodities merchant Sucafina.
* "However, I am not certain that the reallocation of capital to the soft complex has yet been done," he added.
* Robusta coffee LRCc2 fell 3.4% to $3,741 a ton.
(Reporting by May Angel and Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Joyjeet Das and Jonathan Ananda)