Sugar Trading Manual

STM
Sugar Trading Manual

Edited by Jonathan Kingsman

Cambridge England
Published by Woodhead Publishing Limited, Abington Hall, Abington
Cambridge CB1 6AH, England
www.woodhead-publishing.com

First published 2000

Second edition 2002
This edition published 2004

© complete work, Woodhead Publishing Limited 2004

© Chapter 4, LMC International 2004; © Chapter 19, Joan Noble Associates
2004

The authors have asserted their moral rights.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 1 85573 457 5

ISSN 1476-7473

Typeset by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong

Printed by Astron On-Line, Cambridgeshire, England
Contents
List of contributors

Foreword by Dr Peter Baron

Introduction

Index

Part 1: The history of sugar

1 Early history
Tony Hannah
International Sugar Organization

The spread of sugar westwards

The colonial era
Sugar and slavery
The rise of beet sugar
Technical innovation
The social history of sugar

2 Sugar from the 1900s to the present day

Tony Hannah, Sergey Gudoshnikov and Lindsay Jolly
International Sugar Organization

1900–14: Rapid expansion

1914–18: Decline during the First World War
1919–39: Rapid growth and cane makes a comeback
1939–45: Decline in both beet and cane sugar production
during the Second World War
1945–55: Rapid recovery, first post-war International Sugar
Agreement
1955–65: The Cuban Revolution disrupts trade flows
1965–75: The 1974 price boom unleashes far-reaching
structural changes for sugar

Contents/page i
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1975–85: The 1980 price boom reinforces the effects of the

1974/5 boom
1985 to the present day

Part 2: The global picture

3 The current world picture
Jonathan Kingsman, Société J. Kingsman
Tom McNeill, Sugar InSite Pty Ltd

Structural change within the sugar market

Future prospects – closer examination of three key producers
The trading implications of recent changes

4 Costs of production
Philip Digges and Dr James Fry
LMC International

Rationale behind production cost studies

Choice of benchmark
A comparison of cane and beet sugar production costs
A comparison of sugar production costs for a group of selected
cane and beet sugar producing countries
Technical performance and its impact on costs
Conclusion

5 Alternative sweeteners
Lindsay Jolly
International Sugar Organization

Starch sweeteners
High intensity sweeteners
Conclusion
Appendix: Characteristics of high intensity sweeteners and
polyhydric alcohols
References

6 World fuel ethanols – analysis and outlook

Dr Christoph Berg
F.O. Licht

Contents/page ii
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Some basic concepts

Success factors
Ethanol support schemes – a regional analysis
World ethanol trade flows now . . .
. . . and in the future
Conclusions

Part 3: Physicals
7 Sugar pricing
Robin Shaw
Samer Darwiche, Cargill International SA, Geneva

The futures component

Physical premiums or discounts

8 Freight
Stephan Baldey
O. P. Secretan

Liner or tramp
Voyage or timecharter
Voyage estimate: dry cargo
Charter party
Trends

9 Statistical analysis
Rod Boltjes
Cargill Inc, USA

The quarterly ‘S & D’ format

Sources of information
Quality conversions
Other conversions
How to use the database
Relationships
Significance of the fundamental range
Conclusion

Contents/page iii
Contents

10 The Sugar Association of London (SAL) and The

Refined Sugar Association (RSA)
Derek Moon
SAL and RSA

Why do trade associations exist?

How are the two sugar associations managed?
The regulatory organizations for the international trading of
physical raw cane and beet sugar and physical refined white
sugar
How does the arbitration system work?
Supervision of raw sugar cargoes delivered to the UK by The
Sugar Association of London
Other services to the trade

11 Supervision
Robert G. Danvers
International Commodity Control Services, Hamburg

Definition
Nomination
Role of the supervisor
Documentation
Claims
Arbitration/litigation
Conclusion

12 Sugar quality
Tom McNeill
Sugar InSite Pty Ltd

Quality aspects of raw and refined cane sugars

The refining process
Critical steps in refining sugar
Utilization of sugar in food manufacturing
Grades of raw sugar

Part 4: Futures
13 Futures and options
James Cassidy and Michael McDougall
Fimat, USA

History and background

Market participants

Contents/page iv
 Contents

Option strategies
Conclusion

14 The exchanges
Doug Nicolson
Sucden UK Ltd

The New York Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange (CSCE)

LIFFE
The Tokyo Grain Exchange

15 Technical trading
Jonathan Kingsman
Société J. Kingsman

Technical versus fundamental analysis

Why does technical analysis work?
The investment funds
The tools of the technical trade
Risk management and moral hazard
Conclusion

Part 5: Administration and

management
16 Payment and documents
John Maton
Coimex, Geneva

Cash against documents (CAD)

Letters of credit (L/C) or documentary credit (credit)
Bid bonds (BB) and performance bonds (PB) and guarantees

17 Accounting
Simon O’Mahony
Sucre Export London Ltd

Commercial approach
Special features of sugar accounting
Accounting principles

Contents/page v
Contents

Futures margins
Positions
Contract pricing
Vessel accounting
Futures accounting
Despatch and demurrage
Currencies
Internal markets
Quotas and licences

18 Finance and risk management

Roger Bradshaw
Rabobank, London

Primary production financing

Financing sugar factories and mills
International sugar trade
Managing risk

Part 6: Regional markets

19 The European Union
Joan Noble
Joan Noble Associates

The EU sugar policy 2001–2006

Pressures for change: the EU sugar policy from 2006
The policy beyond 2006
Appendix A: EU sugar support prices
Appendix B: Basic sugar, isoglucose and inulin quotas in the EU
(tonnes) 2001/02 to 2005/06
Appendix C: Coefficients used to cut Member States’ quotas for
sugar, isoglucose and inulin: applicable from 2004/05
Appendix D: EU production quotas for sugar, isoglucose and
inulin
Appendix E: Preferential sugar quotas for ACP and India

20 The United States

Frank Jenkins
Jenkins Sugar Group

US sugar policy
Tariff rate quota

Contents/page vi
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Sugar program apparatus

Re-export programs
The US sugar beet industry
The US cane sugar industry
Free trade

21 MERCOSUR and the Andean Community

Leonela Santana-Boado
UNCTAD

MERCOSUR and the Andean Community Agreement

Sugar in the MERCOSUR Agreement
Impact of MERCOSUR on members’ sugar economies
Sugar in the Andean Community
Impact of Andean Community (CAN) on members’ sugar
economies
Conclusion
Appendix A: Trade agreements in Latin America
Appendix B: MERCOSUR and CAN in the world sugar
economy
Appendix C: Centrifugal sugar (thousand tonnes raw value):
MERCOSUR members
Appendix D: The sugar trade before and after MERCOSUR
Appendix E: Ad valorem tariffs in MERCOSUR members
Appendix F: Ad valorem tariffs in Andean group of countries
Appendix G: Centrifugal sugar (thousand tonnes raw value) in
the Andean Pact
Appendix H: The sugar trade before and after the Andean
Pact
Appendix I: The MERCOSUR Agreement; from LAFTA to
MERCOSUR
Appendix J: First efforts to integrate the sugar sector

22 Sugar markets of the FSU countries

Sergey Gudoshnikov
International Sugar Organization

Sugar production: trends and developments

Sugar consumption: trends and developments
Foreign trade in sugar: trends and developments
National sugar policies and market structures
Conclusion
Appendix: Statistical analysis

Contents/page vii
Contents

Part 7: Appendices
1 Sugar No. 11 Rules

2 Sugar No. 5 Rules

3 Standard physical contracts

4 Sugar Charter-Party 1999

5 Sugar No. 14 Rules

6 Organic sugar – Demand potential and supply availability

7 Glossary of terms

Contents/page viii
Contributors
Stephan Baldey
Stephan Baldey is a chartering broker who has been involved in the
international freight market for over thirty years. He is both a member
of the LIFFE sugar market freight panel and of the Baltic Exchange.
His company, O.P. Secretan, based in the City of London, is experi-
enced in the chartering of ships to carry all dry cargo commodities spe-
cializing in the sugar trades.

Christoph Berg
Christoph Berg is senior economist and deputy director at commodity
analyst F.O. Licht. He graduated in Economics from Heidelberg Univer-
sity in 1989 and afterwards was Research Fellow at Victoria University,
Manchester, UK. In 1993 he was awarded a Ph.D. in Economics at the
Technical University of Berlin. In 1994 he joined F.O. Licht, where he is
responsible for newsletters and reports on sugar, molasses and ethanol.

Rod Boltjes
Rod Boltjes was born in 1944 near Platte, S. Dakota. Rod graduated
with a B.S. degree from S. Dakota State University in 1967. He was
drafted into the US Army while working on his master’s degree in eco-
nomics at the same institution. After a year’s service in Vietnam, he
joined Cargill in 1969. The early years at Cargill were spent on funda-
mental analysis for the grain, livestock and soybean processing divi-
sions. In 1973 he joined the Cargill Sugar Division and created a
fundamental data package to assist in analysing the volatile sugar
market. Similar statistical packages were later created for cotton,
molasses and coffee. From 1983 to 1987, he was manager of Cargill’s
Technical Analysis department, where he developed technical trading
systems and held technical seminars for the company’s trading
divisions. Rod is currently senior economist at Cargill for the Sugar
Business Unit.

Roger Bradshaw
Roger Bradshaw started in sugar in 1977 as a floor trader on the Paris
futures market. He then moved to London where he worked for Rionda

Contributors/page i
Contributors

de Pass as a trader until 1980 when he joined J.H. Rayner (Mincing

Lane) Ltd. In 1985 he joined E.D. & F. Man Ltd. and was appointed as
a director of E.D. & F. Man (Hong Kong) Ltd. He joined Rabobank
in Hong Kong in 1991 and in 2000 relocated to Rabobank
in London. Since January 2004 he has assumed responsibility for
relationship management of UK food and agribusiness clients.

James Cassidy
James Cassidy is Senior Vice President – Investments of Fimat USA
in New York where he heads the sugar desk. After graduating from
Fordham University with a double major in Finance and Economics,
Jim has posted an 18-year career in the sugar business with a number
of houses, including Thomson McKinnon, Prudential Bache, Paine
Webber and Brody White. Jim has extensive experience in trading
futures and options with an in-depth knowledge of the sugar industry.
He has written numerous articles and journals on the futures side of
the business and is an active representative of trade houses, produc-
ers and users in sugar derivative markets.

R.G. Danvers
R.G. Danvers started his career in 1963 by joining Cargo SuperInten-
dents (London) Ltd (SGS Group), where he worked for nine years,
involved in sampling, checking and weighing cargoes arriving from
many different origins. In 1974, he joined Tradax (Cargill Group) in
the UK and was responsible for UK Discharge Programme, including
the appointment of Stevedores, Ship Agents and Cargo Surveyors
as well as undertaking chartering activities. He also represented
Tradax at the North American Shippers Association. In 1978, he was
appointed Managing Director of Warriner Griffith International and trav-
elled extensively overseas in developing the international trade in
supervision/surveying services. Since 1981, Mr Danvers has been
a Director of Control Union responsible for sales and marketing
worldwide.
In 1993, Mr Danvers moved from London to Hamburg and was
appointed Managing Director of ICCS – International Commodity
Control Services GmbH, a company within the Control Union World
Group of Companies, with specific responsibilities for the marketing
and execution of sugars and related business worldwide, in addition to
developing the group’s expanding supervision interests in Eastern and
Central Europe including the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Com-
monwealth of Independent States (CIS). During this period, Mr Danvers
served as Chairman for two years on the Agricultural and Vegetable
Oils Committee of the International Federation of Inspection Agencies

Contributors/page ii
 Contributors

(IFIA) and currently continues to serve on this committee as a Senior

Member. Additionally, Mr Danvers serves as Chairman on behalf of IFIA
on the current Sub-Committee formed between the Refined Sugar
Association (RSA) and the Sugar Trade Protection Club (STPC).
During the course of his career, Mr Danvers has been called upon as
a Professional Witness at various arbitrations in matters related to the
supervision business.

Samer Darwiche
Samer Darwiche entered the commodity industry in 1991 with Cargill
International SA and held senior trading positions in Geneva
in its Energy and Sugar Divisions until June 1998. In 1999 he
co-founded and co-managed a global sugar trading team for Tradigrain
SA. Thereafter he worked as a fund manager for Martin Group in Milan
until 2001. Mr Darwiche rejoined Cargill in 2002 as Manager of their
White Sugar Trading operations.

Philip Digges
Philip Digges is Deputy Head of Sugar Reseach at LMC International’s
Sugar and Sweeteners Research team, with particular responsibility for
international market issues and issues relating to sugar policy, pricing,
trade and production. He is also an editor of the monthly Sugar Bul-
letin and Sweetener Analysis, and of the LMC Sugar and Sweeteners
Quarterly Report Service. In addition to his role in contributing to LMC’s
work on sugar, Mr Digges has also played a lead role in the company’s
leather and leather products team. Prior to joining LMC, he was a senior
economist at the Natural Resources Institute where he specialized in
crop marketing systems and trading strategies. This involved analysis
of smallholder, national, domestic and international marketing sys-
tems for tropical crops, and the appraisal of storage and processing
technologies.

James Fry
James Fry is Managing Director of LMC International, and was one of
the company’s founders in 1980, subsequently spending a great deal
of time participating in the development of its work in the sugar and
sweetener sectors. A particular area of professional interest for him is
the preparation of production cost models for sugar and other agricul-
tural commodities. Prior to joining LMC, he was a University Econom-

Contributors/page iii
Contributors

ics lecturer at Oxford University, England, and also at the University of

Zambia and the Université Officielle du Congo, in Lubumbashi in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sergey Gudoshnikov
Sergey Gudoshnikov was educated in Moscow in international trade
economics and has dedicated more than two decades of his profes-
sional career to the world sugar market. From 1978 to 1988 he worked
as a trader and then as deputy director of the Sugar Department of V/O
Prodintorg, Moscow. At that time Prodintorg was the sole sugar
importer and exporter in the Soviet Union with an annual turnover
exceeding six million tonnes of sugar. In 1988 Sergey joined the
secretariat of the International Sugar Organization, London, as an
economist. He has published many articles on different aspects of the
world sugar economy with a particular emphasis on the sugar markets
of Eastern Europe.

A.C. Hannah
A.C. (‘Tony’) Hannah was educated in New Zealand in agricultural eco-
nomics and was Trade Policy Research Centre Fellow at Cambridge
University from 1970 to 1973. From 1973 to 1976 he was Commodity
Specialist at GATT in Geneva, and in 1977 he was appointed Head of
the Economics and Statistics Division of the International Sugar Organ-
ization. He has published many articles analysing the international
sugar market with particular emphasis on the effects of structural
changes in the market. In 1996 he co-authored the book The Interna-
tional Sugar Trade, published by Woodhead Publishing Ltd. Mr Hannah
died in June 2001.

Frank Jenkins
Frank Jenkins is President of Jenkins Sugar Group, Inc., a commodi-
ties brokerage located in Wilton, Connecticut. Mr Jenkins has worked
in various capacities in the sugar industry since 1983, most recently as
a Vice President with Merrill Lynch and previously with E.D. & F. Man
in New York. He lives in Wilton, Connecticut, with his wife and three
children.

Lindsay Jolly
Lindsay Jolly is an economist working with the International Sugar
Organization where he is responsible for conducting market research

Contributors/page iv
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and analysis of the world sweeteners, molasses and ethanol markets.

Mr Jolly has a wide experience in economic research into primary com-
modity markets. He has previously been employed at the Australian
Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics in Canberra, Australia
(1982–90 and 1992–95) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations in Rome, Italy (1990–92).

Jonathan Kingsman
Jonathan Kingsman began his career in sugar in 1978 with Cargill Inc.,
where he worked as a trader both in Europe and the United States
before moving on to the brokerage side of the business with ContiCom-
modity Services and then Paine Webber. He now lives in France where
he started his own physical brokerage and consultancy company in
1990.

John Maton
John Maton is an Arbitrator for The Refined Sugar Association of
London. He has worked in the sugar trade since 1978, firstly for Anglo
Chemical Commodities in London and from 1981 to 2003 for Gill &
Duffus in Geneva. He joined Coimex Geneva in November 2003. He
is a technician with in-depth knowledge of contract terms.

Michael McDougall
Michael McDougall, Senior Vice President of Fimat USA Inc. World
Desk, joined Fimat in March 1995 as Managing Director until May
when the international team was transferred to New York. The World
Desk has been instrumental in developing hedging activities for com-
modity producers and consumers, with particular emphasis on the
Brazilian sugar/alcohol industry. Michael lived in Brazil between 1984
and 1998.

Tom McNeill
Tom McNeill is a director of the consulting firm Sugar InSite Pty Ltd in
Brisbane, Australia. This chapter was written when he was Senior
Analyst for Queensland Sugar Ltd. Prior to that Tom was marketing
manager for Queensland Sugar Corporation. He has also worked in
sugar mills and in export marketing for CSR Limited, and as a project
manager for the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation.

Contributors/page v
Contributors

Derek Moon
Derek Moon joined the Sugar Association of London and the Refined
Sugar Association in 1963 as a Junior Clerk and was appointed Sec-
retary to both Associations in 1985. He is a member of the Commer-
cial Court Committee, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a
council member of the Federation of Commodity Associations.

Doug Nicolson
Doug Nicolson is currently manager of the sugar futures desk at
Sucden UK. He has had a long and varied career in most aspects of
the sugar business, including physical trading, physical brokerage and
futures trading both as a client and a broker.

Joan Noble
Joan Noble is a highly respected expert on the European Union’s
common agricultural policy and its impact on the food industry. Having
worked for many years in the City of London for sugar traders S. & W.
Berisford and E.D. & F. Man, she established her own consultancy,
Joan Noble Associates Ltd*, in 1989. Her business is active in
advising on agricultural, food and environmental legislation and
related international trade policy. She is a well-known speaker at
international conferences, is a member of the EU’s ‘Team Europe’
Speakers’ Panel and has had numerous articles published. *Joan
Noble Associates Ltd, 5 Brunswick Gardens, London W8 4AS;
Telephone: 020 7727 9345; Facsimile 020 7792 1992; e-mail:
joan@joannobleassociates.com.

Simon O’Mahony
Simon O’Mahony currently works as a trader for Sucre Export London
Ltd. Simon qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen in
London before joining Philipp Brothers in 1979. He started on the sugar
trading desk in 1984, specializing in both foreign exchange and EU
sugar trading. He joined Sucre Export in 1990.

Leonela Santana-Boado
Leonela Santana-Boado joined the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development in 1990. From March 1990 to December 1994,
she worked as an economic affairs officer in the Commodities Division,
Agriculture Products Branch. Since January 1995 she has been
working at the Risk Management and Finance Unit of UNCTAD. She

Contributors/page vi
 Contributors

has published various documents and has been a speaker at interna-

tional conferences in the area of sugar and risk management and
finance. Some of her most recent publications on sugar are: ‘Collater-
alized commodity financing with special reference to the use of ware-
house receipts’, UNCTAD/COM/84, 1996; ‘Sugar and Customs Unions
in Latin America: MERCOSUR and Andean Pact, 1997’; ‘Customs
Unions and Free Trade: Mercosur and Andean Pact’, F.O. Licht’s World
Sugar and Sweeteners Conference, 1998; ‘A survey of the impact of
the Everything but Arms initiative in the sugar sector of LDCs’, 2003.

Robin Shaw
Robin Shaw has been involved in sugar all his working life. He started
with C. Czarnikow in 1966 before moving to Sucres et Denrees Paris
in 1971, where, with one interruption, he worked until 1992. He was
head of CR Sugar Trading in London from 1992 until its closure in 1999,
when he started an Internet brokerage exchange. His travels on sugar
business have given him a fairly deep knowledge of the main sugar
countries, notably Russia (he speaks Russian) and China.

Contributors/page vii