Cocoa exporters in top grower Ivory Coast predict port arrivals in February and March will drop to around half the levels seen during the same period last year, erasing much of the current advance in volumes compared to last season.
| Cocoa beans |
Volumes delivered to the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro reached around 1,047,000 tonnes by Feb. 2, according to exporter estimates, up from 879,000 tonnes in the same period of the previous season.
However, the weekly total of 30,000 tonnes of beans slipped below volumes recorded during the same week last year, and cocoa exporters told Reuters that the trend is set to continue in coming weeks.
"I see 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes for February and March if the current volumes continue," said on Abidjan based exporter.
"This week we expect 20,000 tonnes, but 10,000 tonnes next week. According to our information, arrivals are dropping fairly rapidly," he added.
Four exporters based in Abidjan and San Pedro gave forecasts ranging from 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes of beans for the last two months of the October-to-March main crop. Total main crop arrivals were seen at between 1.13 and 1.15 million tonnes, according to the exporters.
Around 190,000 tonnes of beans were shipped between Jan. 29 and Mar. 31 last year, according to exporters' estimates compiled by Reuters.
"For the past few days the arrivals have not been very good and there is practically nothing left to harvest on the plantations," said the director of a San Pedro based exporter.
A Reuters reporter travelling through Ivory Coast's western growing regions this week confirmed that few farmers had beans to offer middlemen.
Farmers in Meagui, Soubre, and San Pedro said they had harvested almost all of their main crop by the end of January.
"There is nothing left. All the pods have been cut. We are waiting for the mid-crop, but it's going to be a little while," said Ali Coulibaly, a farmer in the village of Walebo, near Meagui.
However, some cocoa was still available in the regions of Duekoue, Man and Bangolo.
Major export firms currently have teams of analysts, known as pod counters, touring Ivory Coast as they seek to assess the setting of flowers and small pods for the April-to-September mid-crop.
"I'm a bit surprised by the lack of pods on the plantations during this period after we had such strong production between October and January," one pod counter told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Analysts believe that much of Ivory Coast's bumper early output was due to the stocking of beans from the previous season by merchants anticipating a higher price for the 2013/14 crop.
"If we look very closely at the numbers, we realise that without the stocks from September, today arrivals would be either at the same level or below last year's levels," said a second pod counter.
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