Brazilian raw sugar exporters, sitting on huge stocks as the country’s cane crush winds down, are discounting aggressively and taking advantage of cheap freight to muscle into Thailand’s sales to China. European trade sources said mills in the world’s biggest producer and exporter Brazil were offering hefty discounts of some 100 points (1 cent) to New York March ICE futures on nearby physical sugar, compared with 50 point discounts offered by Thai mills. China is a major importer of raw sugar and closely tracks physical market differentials and freight costs from key exporters to get the best deals. Its appetite for the sweetener can have a big impact on global raw sugar prices, which traded last month at a more than 4-year low of 13.32 cents a lb, pressured by huge surpluses. March raw sugar futures on ICE were up 1 percent to 16.61 cents a lb on Wednesday. “Brazilians are discounting much more than Thais, and their sugar reaches China at almost the same price as Thais,” Claudiu Covrig, senior agricultural analyst with data provider Platts Kingsman, said. Chinese buyers tend to prefer the higher quality of sugar from Brazil, compared with No. 2 sugar exporter Thailand. European traders talked of at least one freight fixture of Brazilian raw sugar in the last week for November shipment to China. FREIGHT OPPORTUNITY Cheap freight, partly due to a sharp fall in oil prices in the past few months, has given Brazilian supplies an edge for bulk shipment over the long distances to growing Asian markets. The freight cost to ship bulk raw sugar from south Brazil to China was $35.50 per tonne this week, compared with $15 to ship Thai sugar to China, a market source said. “The window is open for Western hemisphere sugar to move East,” one London-based physical trader said. “The Brazilians are probably past the peak storage period of the year, and it’s a big crop. There has been a very benign, cheap freight environment, and that levels the playing field for Brazilian sugar to compete globally.” The trader added: “But this business is not anything to be proud of: mills are having to discount heavily.” Dealers attending London Sugar Week events earlier this month, a biennial gathering of traders from around the world, had talked of weak physical demand, and a difficult environment for trade houses, as the world has to get through vast stocks accumulated after four straight years of surpluses. European dealers said they believed much of a Thai old-crop sugar supply overhang had found markets, including much of the raw sugar delivered to receiver Bunge against expiry of the ICE October raw sugar futures contract on Sept. 30.