Brazil, which starts its 2010 crush in late March, couldn't get its entire last crop off and has a significant carry-over, but is predicted to have a crop four percent larger than last year.

That 4pc represents an additional 40mt compared to the 30mt produced in Australia last season.

Unica, the Sao Paulo-based miller organisation, expects 40pc of Brazil's centre-south mills to have begun crushing by the end of March - three to four weeks earlier than usual.

It also said 330 mills are scheduled to operate - an increase of 10 mills on 2009.

Continuing on the supply and demand front, Thai sugar production estimates have been revised down from 7.3mt to 7mt, and to complicate the issue, the predicted slowdown in sales due to the high raw sugar prices has begun to bite, with Egypt cancelling a tender to buy 50,000t of raw sugar last week.

A Pakistan tender to buy 200,000t of white sugar fell over at the 11th hour after failing to receive a bank guarantee - the second time in the month a Pakistan tender had to be scrapped.

What that information resulted in was a slump in London White and also a drop in the NY No.11 Raw Sugar Futures for March 2010 to just over US24c/lb, down from a high of US30c/lb in early February. However, 2011 contracts held their values.