LONDON, Nov 5: Damage to Cuba’s sugar cane crop after Hurricane Michelle hit the island was unlikely to have a major impact on world sugar prices, European traders and analysts said on Monday.

A futures trader said: There is still plenty of sugar around in the world especially from Thailand, India and Brazil people won’t panic.

We have had cyclones in Australia before and they have still produced a bumper crop.

Hurricane Michelle, the worst storm to hit Cuba since 1944, pounded the island with torrential rain and fierce winds as about 700,000 people were evacuated from their homes.

Damage to citrus, sugar, banana and coffee crops was expected, officials and state television reporters said.

It’s certain that damage has been done to agriculture, said Cuban President Fidel Castro, but he added that it was too early to give details.

Independent forecaster Weather Services Corporation said the hurricane had brought damaging winds and flooding rains to western and central Cuba on Sunday, having a significant impact on cane fields. Elsewhere, conditions were seen as fair to favourable for cane.

Traders and analysts said it was too early to revise crop estimates.

The hurricane has gone through two of the major cane provinces and with wind strength reported at gusts of 130 to 140 mph there would have been some damage to cane whether that is going to be five per cent or 20 per cent of the crop is impossible to say, one trader said.

Another trader said the rains could benefit crops.

Cane cutting normally starts in November, with the harvest in full swing in early January.

With hurricanes the early prognosis is normally bad but more often than not it could be beneficial for the crop unless the whole cane is destroyed and stays under water for a long period of time, he said.

Cuban officials had expected 2001/02 output to weigh in above the previous year’s disastrous 3.53 million tons of raw sugar, reaching around four million tons.

Analysts said the crop had potentially been seen up by 300,000 tons in 2001/02.

Cuban is not as big a supplier on the world market as it used to be. Had this happened 20 years ago it would have been quite critical for prices, he added.

LIFFE sugar futures were up on Monday and traders said the market had firmed as a kneejerk reaction to the Cuban news.—Reuters