Robusta coffee futures close lower in thin trading

Robusta coffee futures close lower in thin trading

LONDON (Reuter): Robusta coffee futures were slightly lower at midday yesterday with traders noting lack of follow-through buying and selling pressure from Indonesia, the world's largest robusta producer.

"The buyers have retrenched...They just do not want to buy at these levels," said one trader.

At midday, benchmark September robusta contract was down US$9 at $1,530 a ton after a high of $1,544.

And despite tension in Indonesia - Asia's largest coffee grower - after the worst weekend riots in 20 years, traders said coffee was coming through.

"Indonesia is still selling its crop, the market is well supplied...It's the roasters who have backed off and are awaiting the new crops," he added.

But overall turnover on the exchange was a thin 574 lots at midday. "It has been very quiet...We are still in a summer lull," said one.

Traders on Thursday remained skeptical that hurricane damage to Costa Rica's 1996/97 coffee crop had now reached an estimated 20 percent of output at 3.1 million 46-kg bags.

"It is a bit too early to say what the damage is. They are just picking numbers at the moment," said another.

Costa Rica - a key supplier of green coffee to the UK - was lashed by hurricane Cesar over the weekend, prompting fierce rains and flooding.

"Main and side roads in (the coffee producing zones of) Perez Zeledon and Coto Brus have been almost completely destroyed, which puts at risk all the output of the area, estimated at 600,000 46-kg bags," Alonso Lara of Costa Rica's Coffee Institute (ICAFE) told Reuters.

Cesar killed at least 28 people and left thousands homeless in Central America over the weekend, with Costa Rica the worst hit of the small Central American nations.

Coffee futures are struggling to consolidate after sliding to 27-month lows of $1,496 a ton, basis September, last week but technical analysts said on Thursday that there is still a risk that $1,496 will be tested.