July 10 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures rose to a three-week
high on Tuesday, ahead of a monthly crop supply and demand
report due later this week, as investors covered their short
positions. 
    * The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S., the
second-month December contract              , settled up 0.91
cent, or 1.06 percent, at 86.38 cents per lb. 
    * It traded within a range of 85.13 and 86.41 cents a lb,
touching
its highest level since June 19.
    * "The volume has been light. ... The fact that open
interest is
going down tells this is not speculative buying but is mainly
some short-covering by trade members," said Peter Egli, director
of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton.
    * "Some of them have decided to fix, buy some of their
shorts back
and that has brought the market up," Egli said.
    * Total futures market volume fell by 3,223 to 17,712 lots.
Data
showed total open interest fell 697 to 251,867 contracts in the
previous session.
    * The markets are now awaiting the release of U.S.
Department of
Agriculture's (USDA) monthly World Agricultural Supply and
Demand Estimates (WASDE) on Thursday.
    * The USDA in its weekly crop progress report released on
Monday
showed the 2018 U.S. cotton crop was 41 percent in good or
excellent condition compared with 43 percent a week ago and 61
percent last year.             
    * Certificated cotton stocks CERT-COT-STX deliverable as
of July
9 totaled 33,604 480-lb bales, up from 33,224 in the previous
session.


 (Reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan
Oatis)