RI coffee sales steady as roasters mark time
RI coffee sales steady as roasters mark time
SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesian coffee sales are steady, although roasters had slowed down the pace of their buying, dealers said yesterday.
"The Western roasters are holding off a bit. The supply from Indonesia is fairly steady although the offtake is not very fast," a dealer for a Singapore-based trading house said.
A trader for a European trading company said Indonesian coffee exporters "sold quite a lot the past few weeks, but I don't see much physical business being done now. The market's slowed down."
Traders said about 110,000-115,000 tons of coffee from Indonesia had been sold or committed, although one senior dealer said the amount was probably more than 200,000 tons.
"Most of the crop has already been sold through July," he said. Total exports of coffee this year will probably be between 230,000 and 270,000 tons, traders said.
"We got quite a lot of coffee out," one dealer said. Indonesia's key Grade 4 coffee, 80 defects, was seen by the trade at around US$1,345-$1,400 a ton FOB Lampung against the previous week's $1,400-$1,450 a ton on the same basis.
The trade was still divided about the extent of any fall in Indonesia's coffee harvest. Most dealers estimate the crop will fall by 20-25 percent.
But one senior trader dismissed Indonesian claims coffee exports will fall by up to 30 percent after heavy rains and strong winds pounded coffee farms on Sumatra.
"I don't think it's going to be really down. If there was a real problem, you'd see London futures fly out," he said.
Indonesia is the world's biggest producer of robusta beans and ranks behind Brazil and Colombia as the third largest producer of coffee.
Dealers said Vietnamese exporters were continuing to hang on to about 50,000 tons of robusta coffee left over from their recent harvest.
"The Vietnamese are very canny about this. I remember they tripled the price of the coffee they sold a few years back when the Brazilian harvest was hit by frost. They're hoping it would happen again this year," one trader said.
The price of Vietnam's Grade 2 coffee, 8.0 percent black and broken, was seen by the trade slightly easier at $1,300-$1,400 a ton FOB Saigon against last week's $1,350-$1,400 a ton on the same basis.
London robusta prices are seen opening up to $10 higher. One dealer said the LIFFE July futures contract should hover between $1,550-$1,700 a ton over the next few weeks.
"London is not doing a lot, but it should open slightly higher," a dealer said.
Trading in the robusta coffee contract on the Singapore Commodity Exchange (SICOM) was a meager 415 lots on Tuesday.
SICOM said 405 lots of the September contract settled at $1,470 a ton while the remaining 10 lots of the July contract finished at $1,477 a ton.
Table: SOUTHEAST ASIAN COFFEE PRICES (US$ a ton)
April 30 April 23 Indonesia - Grade 4 FOB Lampung US$1,350/400 $1,400/450 Vietnam - Grade 2 FOB Saigon 1,300/400 1,350/400 Thailand - Robusta FAQ/FOB Bangkok 1,375/450 1,500/540 Papua New Guinea (PNG) - Robusta 1,632 1,755 PNG - Arabica 'A' Grade (U.S. cents/lb) 233.95 223.35 PNG - Arabica 'X' Grade (U.S. cents/lb) 223.95 213.35 PNG - Arabica 'Y' Grade (U.S. cents/lb) 206.95 213.35 India - Arabica PB Grade (rupee/kg) 141-142 NA India - Arabica A Grade (rupee/kg) 140-141