KARACHI: Relentless buying from spinners amid conflicting estimates about cotton production and reports of lesser crop being harvested in India kept lint prices highly volatile on Friday.

Frenzied buying from leading spinners kept cotton prices rising throughout the session and most deals were finalised at the seasonal peak of Rs7,000 per maund.

Reports that Indian cotton crop was suffering from pink bollworm attack led to panic buying. Furthermore, downward revision in the exports of cotton from 7.5m bales to 6m bales by India also sent shock waves, diminishing the hope of importing cotton from neighboring country.

Many spinners have already placed advance orders of up to 200,000 bales in anticipation that Pakistan may lift the ban on cotton imports from India early next year.

However, the new development of short cotton crop in India may shut this source and could push lint prices up, brokers feared.

Rumours that earlier production estimate of 40 million bales (150kg each) would not be achieved further contributed to the volatility.

Spinners have already made arrangement for import of around 1.6m bales from other countries including US, Brazil, West Africa and some Central Asian countries.

Due to volatile conditions on the market, phutti (seed cotton) prices moved higher to Rs2,800-3,350 for Sindh variety and Rs2,800-3,500 for Punjab quality. However, Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates remained unchanged at overnight level.

The following major deals were reported to have changed hands on ready counter: 4,500 bales, Fazilpur, at Rs7,000; 8,600 bales, Rahimyar Khan, at Rs7,000; 5,800 bales, Khanpur, at Rs7,000; 3,200 bales, Feroza, at Rs7,000; 2,400 bales, Liaquatpur, at Rs6,900 to Rs7,000; 800 bales, Khanewal, at Rs7,000; 1,000 bales, Mirpur Diwan, at Rs7,000; 1,000 bales, Rajanpur, at Rs7,000; 2,800 bales, Sadiqabad, at Rs7,000; 1,600 bales, Shujabad, at Rs6,800 to Rs6,850; 1,600 bales, Ahmedpur East, at Rs6,800 to Rs6,900; 1,200 bales, Fort Abbas, at Rs6,600 to Rs6,650; and 1,000 bales, Chishtian, at Rs6,425.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2017