Vietnam's coffee exports for May loading could fall to between 80,000 and 100,000 tonnes from around 130,000 tonnes last month, as domestic stocks were thinned by previously strong shipments to gain from high prices, traders said on Tuesday.
Lower export volumes from Vietnam, the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, will exacerbate supply concerns and keep global robusta prices on an uptrend, after gaining in recent sessions on the back of ICE arabica, which hit a 34-year peak on May 3.
"Loading was strong in March and April, and now with domestic stocks thinning, May shipments could drop a bit," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. Coffee exports last month were down from 160,600 tonnes loaded in March, government statistics showed.
Based on traders' forecasts and government export data as of April, Vietnam will have exported at least 1.02 million tonnes, or 17 million 60-kg bags, of coffee between October 2010 and the end of this month. That would account for 85 percent of the country's 2010/2011 crop harvest, which produced 20 million bags based on an estimate of London-based CoffeeNetwork last month, leaving around 3 million bags in Vietnam. "While stocks are thin, domestic prices rising in line with London have made it easy for exporters to buy from farmers, but the buying volume is not huge," another trader at a foreign company in Ho Chi Minh City said.
Liffe July robusta coffee ended $4 higher at $2,602 a tonne on Monday. Robusta beans stood at between 50.0 million dong and 50.1 million dong ($2,427-$2,432) per tonne on Tuesday in Vietnam's Central Highlands coffee belt, hovering around the all-time high of 50 million dong reached last week.
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