Ashitha Shivaprasad  Reuters

Seher Dareen  Reuters

April 18 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures rose more than 1% on Monday, taking cues from upbeat sentiment across wider grains markets.

* Cotton contracts for July CTc2 were up 1.68 cent, or 1.2%, at 142.40 cents per lb by 11:42 a.m ET. The May cotton contract CTc1 on ICE futures rose 1.78 cents, or 1.3%, to 143.76 cents.

* "Cotton market is following the grain markets and they're all sharply higher. This is mostly due to the logistics problem in China," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi.

* "There are hundreds of ships waiting to off-load and reload in China and this is supporting the prices for agricultural markets in the US."

* China, one of the top consumers of U.S. cotton, reported 23,460 new coronavirus cases on April 17 vs 26,155 a day earlier.

* U.S. grains futures rose, with corn hitting its highest in nearly a decade, supported by tightening global supplies and a production outlook clouded by the Russia-Ukraine war and unfavourable U.S. weather conditions.GRA/

* Oil prices rose in choppy trade, as outages in Libya deepened concern over tight global supply and the Ukraine crisis dragged on. Higher oil prices make polyester, a substitute for cotton, more expensive. O/R

* "Droughty conditions across West Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas continue to worsen, but there are modest to significant chances of showers/rain near Lubbock, Texas and across West Texas this week," Louis Rose of Tennessee-based Rose Commodity Group said in a note dated Sunday.

* Speculators raised net long position in cotton futures by 107 contracts to 64,303 in the week to April 12, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday.

* "There is an acreage battle. It has been wet in the South, and planting is a little bit delayed," Varner added.

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad and Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)