Asia coffee differentials hardly change

New crop grade 4, 80 defect beans from Indonesia's main growing island of Sumatra stood at premiums of $80 to London's July contract for delivery from May onwards, steady from last week. Premiums for old crop robustas were much higher.

"Exporters who need to fulfil their contracts for March and April have to buy beans at higher prices because there isn't much coffee around," said a dealer in Sumatra, adding that the beans are mostly sold to local instant coffee makers.

"Other consumers prefer to wait and then see what will happen with the differentials when more beans are expected to enter the market in May or June."

The harvest in Sumatra began at the end of January and is likely to peak in the next three months.

Indonesia is the world's third-largest coffee producer and also the second-largest grower of the robusta variety, which is blended with arabica for a lower-cost brew or processed into instant coffee.

Robustas from last year's crop were being offered at premiums of $200 a tonne to London's May contract, but there were no reports of deals.

The International Coffee Organization has increased its estimate of Indonesia's output to 9.2 million 60-kg bags in the crop year to September 2012, from a previous forecast of 8.750 million bags.

Benchmark Liffe May robusta rose $31 to end at $2,034 a tonne on Thursday, tracking gains in arabica, but off a near 6-month high at $2,099 hit last week.

Copyright Reuters, 2012