SOFTS-Robusta coffee futures ease while white sugar prices rise

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Robusta coffee futures on ICE turned lower on Monday after failing to breach resistance around the previous session's 2-1/2 month high while white sugar prices rose.

There was no trading in New York-based arabica coffee, raw sugar and cocoa contracts on Monday because of a U.S. public holiday.

COFFEE

* March robusta coffee fell 0.3% to $1,911 a tonne by 1525 GMT after peaking at $1,919, just shy of the previous session's 2-1/2 month high of $1,920.

* Dealers said price charts were becoming more bullish after the market's recent improved performance.

* "A breakout of the range-bound environment we have seen take place in recent months is a strong indicator for further price gains," Sucden Financial said in a technical note.

* Dealers said the pace of farmer sales in top robusta producer Vietnam remained slow despite a slight recovery in prices from more than one-year lows set in November.

* Speculators trimmed their bearish bets on robusta coffee futures on ICE Europe in the week to Jan. 10, exchange data showed on Friday.

SUGAR

* March white sugar was up 1.1% at $553.50 a tonne.

* Dealers said the market continued to derive support from short-term supply tightness, with March trading at a premium of about $19 a tonne to May .

* They noted, however, the prospect of a rise in cane output in Centre-South Brazil in the coming 2023/24 season and the likelihood that mills will maximise sugar production at the expense of ethanol should bolster supplies later in 2023.

COCOA

* March London cocoa fell 0.7% to 2,055 pounds a tonne.

* Dealers were awaiting fourth-quarter grind data from Europe and North America for indications on the extent to which global economic woes were affecting demand for cocoa. Both reports are due on Thursday.

* Sparse rainfall and high temperatures observed in some of Ivory Coast's cocoa-growing regions last week could damage beans and flowers and reduce the coming April-to-September mid-crop, farmers said on Monday. (Reporting by Nigel Hunt Editing by John Stonestreet and David Goodman)