RI coffee relieved as beans flow

RI coffee relieved as beans flow

JAKARTA (Reuters): Indonesian farmers and middlemen have
started to release coffee stocks on the back of firmer prices,
bringing some relief to exporters scrambling for beans to cover
nearby commitments, traders said on Monday.

They said farmers needed the cash and were lured by the
stronger prices, driven up by the recent weakening of the rupiah
against the U.S. dollar.

They said differentials had also returned to more realistic
levels of US$50-$80 a tonne under London's benchmark futures'
contract.

For the past two weeks, differentials have been quoted at par
to $20 per tonne above London.

"The market is not yet normal but at least everybody is
trading at the same range and there are beans to be bought," said
one trader in Bandar Lampung, the provincial capital of the
growing hub of Lampung.

LIFFE's robusta benchmark November ended $8 down at $434 a
tonne on Friday. January closed $8 down at $447 a tonne.

Grade four robusta beans were quoted at Rp 3,500 - Rp 3,600
(US$0.372) FOB Bandar Lampung on Monday, up from Rp3,400 last
week.

Local coffee prices almost halved to Rp 2,800 per kilogram in
early September from around Rp 4,800/kg in July.

Traders in Sumatra estimate middlemen in the provinces of
Lampung, South Sumatra and Bengkulu -- which account for 75
percent of Indonesia's coffee output -- are still holding around
20,000 tons of beans from the last harvest which finished in
August.