Vietnamese coffee: December shipment to be more than double

Vietnam's coffee shipments for December could be more than double the 50,000 tonnes loaded a month earlier as around half of the nation's bumper crop has been harvested and traders await prices to ease, traders said on Tuesday. Loading in December, the third month of Vietnam's new 2011/2012 crop year, would reach between 110,000-150,000 tonnes also because of higher demand for robusta beans, traders said.
"The shipment this month will contain newly harvested beans, with the volume from bonded warehouses accounting for a large part," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. Two traders estimated the monthly shipment at 150,000 tonnes. They said the higher amount would come from trading firms shipping out stocks from their bonded warehouses to meet overseas delivery commitments after exporters have been selling cargoes slowly in recent months.
A third trader projected December shipment at 110,000 tonnes, but said the figure could rise to 120,000 tonnes if Vietnamese growers sell faster in the second half of the month. "Farmers in Daklak have harvested about 50 percent of the crop, but they have so far been drying only 30-40 percent, and they do not sell all the beans they have now," said a trader from Daklak, Vietnam's top growing province.
Growers had expected to sell when domestic prices hit 40 million dong a tonne, but their sales to exporters were still slow on Tuesday even when robusta beans rose to 40.7-40.9 million dong ($1,938-$1,947) per tonne in Daklak, traders said. Discounts to London's March robusta widened to $20 a tonne from $10 last Tuesday, and traders said buyers were waiting for the gap to widen to $100 so they will start buying. Robusta grade two, 5 percent black and broken rose to $2,000-$2,020 a tonne this week from $1,905-$1,952, a tonne, free-on-board, last Tuesday. "Demand is stable and on a rising trend despite economic slowdowns," a trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City said.