Cocoa hits fresh 7-1/2-month peak, heads towards record high
Adds comments and closing prices
NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Cocoa prices hit 7-1/2-month peaks on Monday after clocking up a fifth consecutive weekly gain last week, with market concerns over supply exacerbated by talk of payment delays in the physical market.
COCOA
* New York cocoa futures on ICE CCc1 settled up $521, or 4.6%, to $11,821 a metric ton.
* The contract is nearing April's record peak of $12,261.
* Dealers said the market continues to ignore bearish news such as cocoa port arrivals in top producer Ivory Coast, which are up about 33% from last season.
* Broker StoneX said there are "massive liquidity crunches in physical markets", with payments delayed and very few new purchase deals agreed.
* Ghana's president-elect, John Dramani Mahama, has pledged to revamp the cocoa sector and reorganise the state-run regulator, aiming to stimulate growth and improve efficiency in the world's second-largest cocoa producer.
* London cocoa LCCc1 rose 4.8% to 9,353 pounds per ton.
COFFEE
* Arabica coffee futures on ICE KCc2 settled up 7.9 cents, or 2.5%, at $3.274 per lb, well short of the $3.4835 record hit on Tuesday.
* Top producer Brazil's 2024/25 coffee sales are well ahead of last season, indicating farmers are well financed, dealers said, and might not be in a hurry to sell further.
* India's Tata Consumer Products TACN.NS will push back plans for some new Starbucks store openings until later in its existing schedule because fewer customers are walking into its cafes in the world's most populous country, its top boss said.
* Robusta coffee LRCc2 rose 0.4% to $5,203 a ton.
* Brazil robusta exports are expected to repeat in 2025 the good performance of 2024, becoming an effective alternative to Vietnam's robustas.
SUGAR
* Raw sugar SBc1 settled down 0.04 cents, or 0.2%, at 20.68 cents per lb, having touched its lowest in nearly three months at 20.43 cents.
* The contract lost 5% last week.
* "We have seen an (upward) adjustment in ideas on the future Brazilian crop now but low stocks still leave the market vulnerable for a price spike if weather were to disrupt Indian, Thai, or particularly Brazilian production going forward," said the McDougall Global View Sugar Report.
* March white sugar LSUc1 rose 0.3% to $529.40 a ton, having lost 5.8% last week.
Reporting by Maytaal Angel and Marcelo Teixeira
Editing by Ed Osmond, David Goodman and Shreya Biswas
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