LONDON: Cocoa futures eased on Friday as lower-than-expected North American grindings growth fuelled demand concerns. Arabica coffee and raw sugar and were steady, as investors eyed news on the European debt crisis including Greece's debt talks, aimed at helping the country avoid a debt default.
"Agricultural markets have been very responsive to any information regarding the evolution of the global economic outlook," said Lysu Paez Cortez, commodities analyst at Natixis.
Cocoa futures on ICE eased with March down $14 or 0.6 percent at $2,306 a tonne at 1521 GMT, as the disappointing grind data weighed. "The global economic situation is likely to have a negative impact on consumption," Natixis' Paez Cortez said.
North American cocoa grindings in the fourth quarter of 2011 rose by 1.49 percent from the fourth quarter in 2010, to 118,926 tonnes, coming in below expectations as the number of participating plants went down.
This followed Europe's fourth-quarter 2011 cocoa grind which climbed 1.8 percent from the fourth-quarter 2010, lower than the 4-7 percent expected.
London March cocoa was down 15 pounds or 1 percent to 1,522 pounds per tonne. Dry weather in top producer Ivory Coast helped to limit the downside with the country expected to see a fall in production on the year due to less favourable weather.
Major cocoa industry players have already cut forecasts for this year's main crop, the October-March period which produces the bulk of annual output, to around one million tonnes from the 1.2 to 1.3 million tonnes estimated for last year.
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