(Adds more details)
By Reese Ewing
SAO PAULO, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Firemen at Brazil's Santos Portstruggled on Sunday to contain a blaze at two sugar warehouses,operated by producer Cosan SA, which threatens todisrupt exports from the world's biggest sugar producing nation.
The fire broke out at the sugar terminal at 4:30 pm localtime and 12 fire trucks were still trying to bring it undercontrol early into Monday morning, Sargent Rodrigues of theSantos Fire Department told Reuters.
Rodrigues gave no additional details.
Representatives for Cosan, Brazil's biggest sugar producer, where not immediately available for comment.
Last October fire gutted the Santos export terminal ofBrazil's largest sugar trader Copersucar, quickly sendingfutures prices up 6 percent and the trader issuing forcemajeure to its clients.
There was no sign that the latest fire had spread beyond thewarehouses controlled by Rumo, Cosan's logistic unit at theport. Copersucar's terminal, which is still under repair fromthe October fire, is right next door to Rumo.
Loss of the physical commodity stored in Rumo's warehouses,which can hold 550,000 tonnes of sugar, is likely to be of lessconcern than the potential damage to the terminal's capacity toexport 12 million tonnes a year of sugar.
The fire will likely disrupt short-term loading of sugarinto ships at the Rumo terminal, and the risk of its spreadingto other sugar warehouses connected by overhead or undergroundconveyor belts cannot be dismissed.
The Santos newspaper A Tribuna's website said firefighterswere trying to contain the fire at Rumo's warehouses 5 and 10.Photographs of the fire in the local media showed large, thickcolumns of black and grey smoke rising from the terminal.
When large stockpiles of sugar catch fire, they can bedifficult to extinguish quickly. As the sweetener burns into thecenter of the mound it creates a carbonized outer shell thatinhibits the penetration of water and chemicals that wouldotherwise snuff out the blaze.
Brazil, the world's largest producer and exporter of sugar,is in the middle of its main center-south cane harvest that isexpected to produce 32 million to 34 million tonnes of sugar,slightly less than initially estimated earlier in the year dueto the impact of an ongoing drought. (Reporting by Reese Ewing; Editing by Michael Perry)
