MILAN – Coffee futures prices closed mixed on Thursday, with Ice Robusta edging lower and Ice Arabica posting new gains. In London, the most traded contract for September delivery lost $28 to close at $4294, after hitting a new record high intraday of $ 4,394. In New York, the main contract for July delivery rose to a new 6-week high of 234.20 cents, up 225 points from the previous session.
Tight supply and weather concerns are supporting both markets, with the strength of Robusta prices spilling over into Arabica futures.
“The tightness in robustas has come about because production has been unable to respond to a big expansion in demand post-Covid,” trader and supply chain services company Czarnikow said in a note quoted by Reuters.
According to preliminary data released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam’s exports amounted to 833,00 tonnes or 13.88 million bags in the first five months of the year, down 3.9% from the equivalent period in 2023.
Thanks to the higher prices, export earnings reached 2.9 billion, up 43.9% on-year. Coffee export prices averaged 4,208 USD per tonne in May, 11.7% higher than April and 63.6% higher than May 2023.
Prices averaged 3,428 USD per tonne from January through May, up 49.9% over the same period last year. Vicofa expected coffee prices to remain at high levels in June.
According to the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (VICOFA), exports for the 2023/24 coffee year could drop 20% to 1.336 million tonnes.
The National Coffee Growers Federation in Colombia have reported that the country’s coffee production for the month of May was 38.96% up on-year to 1,120,000 bags.
Cumulative coffee production for the first eight months of the current 2023/24 coffee year was 18.81% higher at a total of 8,298,000 bags.
Coffee exports for the month of May totalled 933,000 bags, up 10.28%. Cumulative coffee exports for first eight months of the current coffee year rose by 3.91% to 7,767,000 bags.
