Thailand Gives Sugar Bears More to Cheer as Output Keeps Growing

  • Thai production to reach record on bigger area, yields: survey
  • Bigger crop has helped send raw sugar prices to a two-year low

A worker displays raw sugar for a photograph at a mill in Saraburi province, north of Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday, May 9, 2012. 

Photographer: Dario Pignatelli/Bloomberg

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Thailand’s expanding sugar output is surprising traders and giving more ammunition to bears betting that a global oversupply will further weigh on prices.

Millers in the world’s No. 2 exporter have already processed about a fifth more cane than a year earlier and the Office of the Cane and Sugar Board says crushing will likely last longer than usual. Thai output will reach a record in the 2017-18 season as farmers expanded plantings and favorable weather improved yields, according to a Bloomberg Survey of 11 traders and analysts.