MILAN — Robusta coffee futures in London surged yesterday to the highest level in more than 10 years as supply chain issues, including a shortage of container shipping capacity, slow the flow of supplies from top robusta producer Vietnam. March robusta coffee closed up by $14 to $2,353 – the highest level for the benchmark second month since August 2011.
Vietnam Jan-Nov coffee exports are down -4.4% year-on-year at 1.4 metric tons. Also, the USDA’s FAS cut its Vietnam 2021/22 coffee export estimate to 25.8 mln bags from 28.8 mln bags due to surging freight costs and reduced availability of shipping containers.
The harvest in Vietnam, however, continued to make good progress and is now more than 60% complete, reports Reuters.
Vietnamese farmers have been ramping up their harvest of coffee beans in the Central Highlands, Vietnam’s largest coffee-growing area, to take advantage of supportive weather, according to traders.
Arabica coffee futures in New York closed 235 points down at 231.20 cents. Prices were pressured by continued concern about lower coffee demand as the omicron Covid variant sweeps the globe. A lower Brazilian real also encourages export selling by Brazil’s coffee producers.
On Monday, arabica coffee fell to a 5-week low on concern the recent surge in Covid infections will lead to global lockdowns and travel restrictions that close coffee shops and curb coffee demand.
