Global sugar stocks remain at record highs.
Per capita consumption is not growing.
Global sugar production has started to decline from a peak of nearly 190m tonnes a year.

Stocks

Sugar production will fail to exceed consumption in 2019/20, the first time this has happened in 3 years.

Stock Change

However, global stocks are at record highs at the end of 18/19.
The 19/20 deficit needs to be much larger to make a meaningful indent in global stocks.

Global Stocks

Explore where stock is allocated around the world in our interactive sugar data section.

Consumption

Our overall consumption view remains the same: consumption is growing in line with population.
Consumption growth remains strongest across developing regions in Africa and Asia at around 2%.
In China, sugar consumption continues to grow despite competition from HFCS but is coming under more pressure as consumers preferences shift away from high sugar products.
In contrast, consumption in Ukraine has been falling by almost a kilogram per person each year because of conflict with Russia and a weakly growing economy.

Global Consumption and Population

Global Sugar Production

The main change has been in the EU where we have just reduced our EU forecast by 450k tonnes to 17.45 m tonnes.
Our expected yield in Germany, Poland, Netherlands and France has been lowered due to exceptionally hot weather and soil becoming very dry.
For the rest of the EU, our forecast remains unchanged as soil moisture is at more normal levels.
Look out for an LMA for more detail on this change and the implication for the EU market.

EU production

Elsewhere in the world, our Centre-South Brazilian estimate remains at 26.5m tonnes based off a 36% sugar mix.
We believe there is downside risk to the sugar mix as hydrous ethanol now pays over 150 pts more than sugar.
If this disparity continues we may see mills decreasing their mix at the cost of efficiency.
A sugar mix of 34% would reduce production by about a million tonnes.

CS Brazil production

India will remain the largest producer despite production falling by 4m tonnes in 19/20.
Since the last update, concerns around the monsoon have reduced but key cane irrigation reservoirs in Maharashtra remain dry.

Indian production

There has continued to be good rainfall through June and July in Thailand.
Therefore, we continue to think that Thai production will decrease by 1.7 m tonnes YoY.
However, given that a lot of Thailand’s excess sugar will be carried into 2020; expect 19/20 Thai availability to be similar to 18/19.

Thai production

Despite news that fall armyworms may impact Chinese agricultural crops, we believe the effect on cane is limited due to early control.
Therefore, our estimate is maintained at just over 11m tonnes, meaning China will need imports to meet their demand.

Chinese production

These stats are also available to view in the sugar data section. Please note the interactive data is currently displayed by calendar year rather than crop year; we aim to display the data by crop year in the near future.