Aug 28 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures gained for a second straight session on Wednesday ahead of federal export sales data, which is expected to show higher sales of the natural fiber. * Cotton contracts for December rose 0.75 cent, or 1.29 %, to 58.67 cents per lb at 02:22 p.m. EDT(1822 GMT). It traded within a range of 57.84 and 58.92 cents a lb.
* "The USDA data on Monday showed deterioration of the crop which led to a rally on Tuesday. It was mostly fueled by short covering," said Louis Rose, director of research and analytics at Tennessee-based Rose Commodity Group.
* The USDA's weekly crop progress report on Monday rated 43% of U.S. cotton as good-to-excellent condition, down 6 percentage points from a week ago.
* "I don't see much activity today mostly because investors are waiting for the export sales data report tomorrow. Two weeks earlier the data was pretty good but last week it wasn't. There is a lot of uncertainty in the air," Rose added.
* The weekly USDA export sales report released on Aug. 15 showed net sales of 329,100 running bales (RB) for the 2019-2020 marketing year, primarily to Bangladesh and Vietnam, but the week after that export sales nearly halved.
* U.S. exports are likely to increase in 2019/20 in view of a harvest that is expected to be higher than the previous year and in view of further increases in international demand, said Michaela Kuhl, agriculture analyst at Commerzbank.
* Despite the gains today, cotton prices have declined about 20% so far this year as the U.S.-China trade war has hurt demand. China is the world's top consumer of cotton, while the United States is one of the biggest producers.
* Prices touched a 3-1/2-year low on Monday as trade concerns escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump responded to a new round of Chinese tariffs by heaping an additional 5% duty on some $550 billion in targeted Chinese goods.
* But "rising demand for U.S. cotton from other regions should give the cotton price a slight positive boost," Kuhl added.
* Total futures market volume fell by 11,224 to 15,611 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 490 to 219,375 contracts in the previous session. (Reporting by Diptendu Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang)
