Vietnam's February coffee exports jump, no impact on price

Vietnam's coffee exports this month rose at least a quarter from a year ago, but traders said the volume would not affect prices as the beans were mostly going to roasters, and February shipment only offset a decline in a holiday-shortened January.
The government's General Statistics Office (GSO) estimated February shipment at 180,000 tonnes, below a projection of 200,000 tonnes by the Agriculture Ministry, but still in line with market expectations of between 120,000-200,000 tonnes. "The coffee shipped this month is mostly going to roasters and only a small volume may go to London, so it will not affect prices," a trader at a foreign company in Ho Chi Minh City said. The GSO estimate brought the beans exported between October 2011 and this month, the first five months of the 2011/2012 season, to 550,700 tonnes, down 15 percent from a year ago.
Robusta coffee futures trading on Liffe rallied for the second straight day last Friday as slow exports from Vietnam have caused the industry to draw down stocks held in European warehouses, with Vietnamese producers reluctant to sell. The Robusta May contract closed up $38, or 1.9 percent, at $2,056 a tonne, a 2-1/2 month high. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil and also the largest exporter of robusta beans, used mainly for making soluble coffee. Vietnam's coffee exports plunged nearly 48 percent in January from a year ago to 112,000 tonnes because of the Tet new year festival and as farmers held back beans in the expectation of higher prices later.
"Coffee consumption has not been positive in major markets, mostly with falls compared with the same period of 2011," the Agriculture Ministry said in a report, citing declines in the loading volumes to Belgium and Italy. Other top export markets included the United States and Germany.
Two Vietnam-based traders this month estimated the country's coffee export loading in February at between 120,000 and 150,000 tonnes, after a fall in holiday-shortened January. A third trader in Ho Chi Minh City said the shipment could reach 200,000 tonnes, as exporters cashed in on good prices.
But Indonesia, which is Vietnam's rival in robusta bean production, bought 8,900 tonnes of Vietnamese coffee in January, a surge from 960 tonnes in the same month last year, the Agriculture Ministry said in its February report. Heavy rains damaged Indonesia's previous crop in 2011, causing a severe supply shortage that sent premiums of the widely-traded grade 4, 80 defect beans to all-time highs of $550 last August. Vietnam's coffee output from the next 2012/2013 crop may fall between 15 to 20 percent, hurt by the impact of rain on flowers and low yields provided by old trees, the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa) said on Monday.