Jan 31 (Reuters) -ICE cotton futures gained on Wednesday, on the way to their best month since May 2023, aided by bullish bets from speculators and a series of robust export sales data.

* Cotton contracts for March CTc1 rose 0.37 cent, or 0.4%, to 85.15 cents per lb by 12:13 p.m. ET (1713 GMT).

* Prices touched a more than three-month peak on Friday and were set to increase more than 5% in January, their second consecutive monthly rise.

* "We still have more fixations that need to be done and you have less and less resistance from grower selling because the crop is small and most growers by now have probably priced their crops," said Peter Egli, director of risk management at British merchant Plexus Cotton.

* "I see it either in a sideways range or maybe if the specs commit more money, then we could see another push higher."

* Speculators switched to a net long position on 21,976 contracts in ICE U.S. cotton futures in the week of Jan. 23, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Friday. CFTC/

* The dollar eased 0.2%, making U.S. cotton cheaper for overseas buyers. USD/

* Traders looked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly export sales report due on Thursday. EXP/COT

* The report last Thursday showed exports of 142,200 running bales for 2023/2024. Before that, weekly shipments had stayed above 200,000 bales in the last five reports.

* "That's probably what's going to be more important that the shipments are now starting to increase," Egli said.

* In the grains market, Chicago soybean, corn and wheat futures eased after a day-earlier rebound as renewed concerns about Chinese demand put the focus back on swelling global supplies. GRA/

Reporting by Deep Vakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber