MILAN – In the first auction of put options held on September 13, the Brazilian government sold 86% of the option contracts it offered to coffee producers and cooperative, the National Food Supply Company (CONAB) has reported.
Brazil is holding an auction on contracts for as much as 3 million bags of the beans. In this first auction the government had offered to buy 1 mln 60-kg bags at BRL343 (US$150.4) for public stocks.
The state-controlled bank Banco do Brasil will receive 1 billion reais to finance coffee growers’ inventories and costs to help farmers hurt by the lowest prices in four years, a government official said last week.
Brazil’s decision to increase government-held coffee stocks in response to plunging world prices for the commodity was welcomed by the International Coffee Organization Executive Director Robério Oliveira Silva on Thursday
Brazil exported 2.32 million 60-kg bags of unroasted green coffee in August, in line with the 2.27 million bags exported the same month a year earlier, the Council of Green Coffee Exporters, Cecafe, said on Friday
In its most recent forecast, Conab has reduced by 1 million bags its estimate for coffee year 2013/14, due to a lower than expected output of Conillon coffee in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil’s largest producer of the Robusta variety.
The estimate was revealed on the sidelines of the International Coffee Week celebrating ICO’s 50th Anniversary.
Total output was estimated at 47.54 million 60-kg bags, of which 36.66 million of Arabica and 10.88 of Robusta, against a projection of 48.59 million bags released in May.
This is still the biggest production ever recorded for a “off” year in Brazil’s biennial cycle.
Conab’s final estimate for the 2012/13 crop was of 50.83 million bags.
