US cocoa futures finished flat on Monday as market players awaited crop news from the top growing region of West Africa, traders said.
While cocoa farmers in the world's No 1 cocoa producer Ivory Coast agreed on Monday to prolong their strike suspension for the week, which will free up exports, traders and analysts were waiting for numbers on product size and quality.
"It's still in the harvest, and we haven't gotten any numbers yet," one trader said.
"That's why the market is at a standstill." "We had the news that the strike was called off, but that didn't seem to have much of an effect overall," another trader said.
NYBOT most-active December cocoa settled $1 firmer at $1,450 a tonne after trading from $1,442 to $1,457. March ended unchanged at $1,463 and the distant futures likewise settled steady.
In a Reuters report from Abidjan, unions representing Ivory Coast's striking cocoa farmers said they would block deliveries this week to allow talks with the government on a deal to fund co-operatives.
Ivory Coast cocoa farmers went on strike last on Monday, saying an indicative minimum farmgate price of 390 CFA francs (US74 cents) set for the 2004/05 season was too low.
The strike, which had halted deliveries of cocoa to exporters, was called off for the weekend.
Unions told Reuters on Sunday they would agree to the offer of 10 billion CFA francs (US $18.94 million), but said they still had to reach agreement with the government over which organisation should be charged with distributing the money.
Cocoa futures have traded within a narrow $1,390 to $1,480 trading range amid thin volumes for more than a week. NYBOT's estimated cocoa futures volume just before the market closed was 2,766 lots, down from Friday's count of 4,928 lots. Open interest fell 267 lots to 121,404 lots as of October 24.
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