ICE exchange says October raw sugar delivery at 14,652 lots

NEW YORK, Oct 3 (Reuters) - ICE exchange on Monday said that deliveries of raw sugar at the expiration of the October contract totaled 14,652 lots, or around 745,000 tonnes, confirming numbers from traders released on Friday.

The exchange said that all the sugar to be delivered is of Brazilian origin. The southern Brazilian port of Paranagua is where most of the deliverable sugar will be loaded into vessels, a total of nearly 560,000 tonnes. The rest will be loaded at the Santos port, Brazil's largest.

The traders said on Friday that Louis Dreyfus was the leading deliverer with around 435,000 tonnes, while Asian commodities trader Wilmar International was seen as the largest receiver with 567,000 tonnes.

Last year, the October delivery was much smaller at only 4,445 lots, but in 2020 it was an all-time record at 51,597 lots.

"Now whether the delivery is bullish or bearish is always the question, but what is also important beyond the size is the timing. Will the receivers move quickly and strain the pipeline, which now could be more crimped by the recent rain?", said a U.S. broker.

"The relatively small delivery implies that the holders of the millions of tons of CS Brazil raws which remain to be shipped out of this crop, either believe that they will be able to sell it at better than 74 points premium to March, or have already committed all/most of that sugar to destination buyers," said Marex in a note.

The new front-month contract, March, was falling around 1% on Monday. (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by David Gregorio)