MILAN – On the other side of the pond, ICE Robusta‘s most active contract for September delivery ended 1.3% higher on Monday at a new record high of $2,783 a metric ton after setting an intraday record high of $2,797 on Friday. New York’s benchmark price closed 220 points down at 180.75 cents per lb on Friday. Ice Arabica was closed yesterday for the June 19th holiday.
According to Bloomberg, the world’s biggest players in the coffee industry are delaying bean purchases from Brazil as they use up stockpiles accumulated during the pandemic and wait for lower prices.
The latest Commitment of Trader’s (COT) report showed funds boosted their net-long Robusta coffee positions in London by 1,517 lots in the week ended June 13 to 46,051 lots, a 17-month high. This is the longest position since January 22, analysts pointed out.
Robusta has strong support from increased demand from roasters who are substituting Arabica beans for cheaper Robusta beans in a variety of retail coffee blends to cut costs and limit price increases in the grocery basket.
Moreover, the El Nino weather event is likely to bring dry weather to south-east Asia, which could curb Robusta output in top producer Vietnam this year.
The harvest is starting to pick up pace in Brazil. SAFRAS’ weekly monitoring indicates that up to June 13, Brazil reaped 33% of the 23/24 crop, which corresponds to an increase of 7% compared to last week.
The Arabica harvest is 25% complete, against 21% in the same period last year and 26% on the five-year average. Conillon is 49% complete, above the 42% at the same time last year but still below the 52% five-year average.
The world’s largest coffee cooperative Cooxupé, in Brazil have come forth with a report to confirm that their members have already harvested 17.09% of the new, majority natural processed Arabica crop coffees as at 14th June 2023.
This compared with the same period last year, and a harvest of 9.55% of the new crop. Weather has been conducive and this year the pace of harvest has thus far met with a similar pace as that of the 2019 crop year.
Cooxupé expect to receive 8.30 million bags of coffee from farmers this harvest, of which the cooperative expects coffee exports to be 11.11% higher than the previous year, this they foresee to reach 6.60 million bags.
