CIMBALI
Friday 07 February 2025
  • La Cimbali

Robusta coffee futures surged on Friday on supply concerns ahead of New Year holiday in Vietnam

Ice Arabica gains were more limited, with the March contract closing the week at 328.35 cents (+0.4%). Despite the expected decline in Arabica production, Brazil will be able to meet both domestic and international demand this year said Silas Brasileiro, President of the National Coffee Council (CNC) in an interview with Reuters

Must read

  • TME - Cialdy Evo
  • Dalla Corte
Demuslab

MILAN – Ice Robusta futures rallied sharply on Friday 17th January. The March contract in London rose 2.4% (+$117) to close at $5,006, its highest level in over two weeks. The rise also was driven by fears that the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday (Tết Nguyên Ðán) later this month will result, as usual, in a sharp drop in Robusta shipments from Vietnam over the coming weeks.

Ice Arabica gains were more limited, with the March contract closing the week at 328.35 cents (+0.4%).

Despite the expected decline in Arabica production, Brazil will be able to meet both domestic and international demand this year said Silas Brasileiro, President of the National Coffee Council (CNC) in an interview with Reuters.

‘If we have the rainfall and temperatures that we’re seeing at the moment, we will have enough production – as we’ve said before – for exports and domestic consumption,’ said Brasileiro, without giving precise figures on the crop potential.

How much will be this year’s harvest? The first estimates – published in recent weeks – show, as always, wide variations in absolute terms. But they all seem to agree that there will be a significant reduction in Arabica volumes.

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Ibge), a public entity dependent on the Ministry of Development, predicts, for 2025/26, an overall drop in production of 6.8%, to 53.2 million bags, attributable to a double-digit drop (-11.2%) in the Arabica crop, which would fall to 35.6 million, only partially offset by a recovery in Robusta production (+3.4%), to 17.6 million.

Conab’s first official estimate for the 2025/26 crop is due on 28 January, while the fourth estimate for the 2024/25 crop year will be published tomorrow.

Conab’s official figures are traditionally far below those of independent analysts. This discrepancy has always aroused a great deal of controversy, which this year has once again come to the fore.

Especially after Cecafé’s figures for 2024 showed that exports during the past 12 months amounted to more than 50 million bags, to which should be added over 21 million bags of domestic consumption.

All this compares with a 2024/25 production estimated by Conab, in its latest survey (September 2024), at less than 55 million bags.

This disproportion suggests – once again – that the actual size of the harvests was bigger than that showed by Conab’s figures.

‘So there’s no such thing as hidden coffee, but rather coffee left over from previous harvests,’ claimed Brasileiro adding that the 2024 carry-over stocks will be sufficient to meet domestic and international demand.

But even this claim is not supported by the official figures, since production in the previous crop year (2023/24) – again according to Conab – was also around 55 million bags.

CIMBALI

Latest article

Demus Art of decaffeination