ICE cotton gains nearly 2 pct on shortcovering

June 6 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures rose nearly 2 percent
on Wednesday, helped by shortcovering ahead of a weekly export
sales report due on Thursday.    
    * The most active ICE cotton contract for December expiry
      
       settled up 1.57 cent, or 1.76 percent, at 90.55 cents per
lb. 
    * The contract traded within a range of 88.40, the lowest
since
May 29, and 91.25 cents a lb. 
    * "We could be seeing some shortcovering ahead of the weekly
U.S.
export sales report," said Louis Rose, director of research and
analytics at Tennessee-based Rose Commodity, adding that a
cheaper dollar was also supporting cotton. 
    * The December contract jumped about 15 percent from mid-May
until
last week, supported by concerns of drought-like conditions in
West Texas. However, the contract gave up some of its gains in
the two previous sessions following rains in Texas, the major
producing region of the natural fiber in United States.
    * "There was some additional rain across West Texas last
night. It
wasn't as heavy as Sunday night though. They are in a drought.
It's not good. But at least we know it can rain there now...
Outside of West Texas we're OK," Rose said.
    * The dollar index       , which measures the greenback
against a
basket of six major currencies, was down 0.30 percent at 1943
GMT.       
    * The U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly export sales
report
are due on Thursday.
    * Total daily futures market volume fell by 12,563 to 41,720
lots
from the day before. Data showed total open interest fell 1,708
to 320,545 contracts in the previous session.


 (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru)