Sugar May Advance 80% on Supply Crunch, Coleman Says

Sugar may climb 80 percent to as high as 40 cents a pound on global supply shortages, said Singapore-based commodity hedge fund manager Michael Coleman.

“Sugar is caught in a perfect storm,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview. There is “a big hole” in world supply and no obvious solution in the next six to nine months, said Coleman, 49, managing director of Aisling Analytics, which runs a $1.4 billion fund invested in energy and agriculture.

The sweetener has surged 88 percent this year, reaching a 28-year high, as India, the biggest consumer, had its driest June in 83 years and parts of Brazil, the largest grower, were drenched by rainfall four times more than normal, too wet to harvest. World demand will exceed output by as much as 5 million metric tons in the year ending September 2010, according to the International Sugar Organization. (more)