Raw sugar prices are on the rise on fears that world demand will exceed global supply. According to Bloomberg, damaged sugar crops due to a drought in Russia and adverse weather conditions in Brazil and China are responsible for a supply shortage.
Brazil, India, China, Thailand, Pakistan, Mexico, Colombia, Australia and the United States are the world’s largest sugar producers. Brazil dominates sugar world markets thanks to high demand for sugar-based ethanol.
Corn ending stocks for the US for 2010 are projected to be lower than corn demand for the same period, prompting a rise in corn prices. Corn prices increased about 55% for the June-November 2010 period. According to the Corn and Soybean Digest low crop yields explain the supply side. The demand side can be explained mainly by the increase of corn-derived ethanol production.
Cotton prices are expected to keep climbing. Excess demand over supply is the main factor. World supply is not likely to catch up soon since cotton inventories are currently low. Cotton crops in China and India have been damaged due to bad weather, and floods in Pakistan have further decreased cotton output. The major cotton producers are India, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and the United States.
As of January 2010 the price of cotton was at 77.4 cents per pound. By October 2010 the price of cotton had climbed to 126.55 cents per pound, an increase of 63.5%. The world cotton market is valued at approximately 12 billion annually.
In addition to the cotton monthly prices in our commodity section, now we have cotton daily prices.
You can follow cotton daily and monthly prices at http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=cotton.
As of Tuesday December 7th, 2010 the average spot price in US cents per pound for upland cotton is 125.98.
We just published a list of the World’s top commodity suppliers. The initial version includes company names, web sites, locations, and estimated production/capacity for producers, manufacturers, processors, etc. We will improve the list as we receive feedback.
Mineral production charts and other mineral statistics refreshed with the latest USGS numbers.
A quick glance at the commodity price index in our historical commodity prices section strongly suggests that a new bubble is forming. The graph below shows the price index for the past 15 years. The value for October 2010 is about the same as the value for December 2007. Note though that the index reached a similar high in April 2010, so it is also possible that commodity prices may fluctuate up and down for a while.
A clearer picture emerges if we look at the price of cotton over the past 25 years.
Cotton price is at an all-time high, at a level higher than the one it reached in May 1995.
The absurdities of the European system of sugar subsidies are highlighted today in a New York Times article. Rampant fraud and corruption plague a byzantine system of rules and regulations created to support a program that primarily benefits large multinational corporations. Because of the subsidies, consumers in the European Union pay an average retail price of $0.63 per pound, while the global average is only about $0.36 per pound.
The historical trend of the European wholesale import price can be studied in further detail in our commodities section. Click on the graph below to manipulate and download the data.
The historical commodity prices section has been updated with numbers for August 2009.
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