Europe's fresh cocoa prices fell in thin trade this week as buyers waited to learn more about the quality of Ivory Coast cocoa beans before making new purchases, traders said. Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, resumed cocoa exports earlier this month after a disputed presidential election led to an export ban, European trade sanctions, a crippled banking system, and weeks of civil war.
Abundant rains which fell in Ivory Coast's cocoa-growing regions should enable a strong mid-crop until at least early August. "The market is a bit boring and people expect it to go down because of fundamentals," one trader said. "On the other hand we still don't know what the quality of the beans is. It is still pretty unsafe to send people there to look into it," he said.
Cocoa arrivals at Ivorian ports are running around 13 percent above last year's levels and deliveries are set to keep picking up, but security remains a problem up-country, exporters said on Friday. Thousands of cocoa farmers who fled their fields during five months of conflict in Ivory Coast are too afraid of ethnic reprisals to go home, and many fear their plantations are either looted or rotting. Ivory Coast differentials were at around 60 pounds over London nearby cocoa futures contracts, 20 pounds down from last week. "Now the main concern is getting logistics in Ivory Coast back to normal," another trader said.