Vietnam's coffee exports this month could rise to between 65,000 tonnes and 70,000 tonnes, part of which will come from foreign firms' Vietnam-based stocks, up at least 18 percent from the loading volume in July, traders said on Tuesday. The volume to be loaded is from deals committed a few months ago, the latest of which could be from July, while Vietnamese exporters have slowed trading in recent weeks due to thin stocks and high prices keeping foreign buyers away, traders said.
Coffee prices in main robusta producers Vietnam and Indonesia are likely to stay firm due to bad weather and tight supply ahead of the next crop, traders said. "The foreign demand for taking delivery of Vietnamese beans remains stable at around 70,000 tonnes, so the shipment this month could come from stocks of both foreign companies and Vietnamese exporters," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. He said exporters may ship 40,000 tonnes and another 30,000 tonnes would come from the warehouses of foreign companies.
Vietnam exported an estimated 55,000 tonnes, or 917,000 bags, of coffee in July, down 38.2 percent from the same month last year, the government said. In August 2010 Vietnam exported 77,800 tonnes of coffee, up from 54,000 tonnes the year before, government data show.
The shipment expected this month, equivalent to 1.08-1.17 million bags, would take more than half of Vietnam's remaining stock from the latest 2010/2011 harvest, leaving less than 1 million bags for September. At the end of July, the stock left in the country would be at around 2 million bags, according to a Reuters tally, after 20.17 million bags were exported between October 2010 and this July.
The thinning stocks in the world's largest robusta producer have helped keep domestic prices above London robusta futures prices in recent weeks. In the past, Vietnamese robusta beans were mostly sold at discounts to London prices. "It's been quiet as exporters are indicating a premium of $200 a tonne but there are no buyers," another trader at a foreign company in Ho Chi Minh City said. Last week, a trader in Indonesia said premiums of Vietnamese coffee stood at $240-$250 a tonne to London September robusta, which rose $10 to end at $2,102 per tonne on Monday.
Going by Tuesday's indicative premium and domestic prices, Vietnamese robusta grade 2, 5 percent black and broken would be at $2,302-$2,305 a tonne, free-on-board, against $2,300-$2,350 last Tuesday. In domestic markets, robusta beans rose to 46.5-46.6 million dong ($2,262-$2,267) a tonne on Tuesday, from 46.2 million dong on Monday but were still below a range of 47.2-47.3 million dong last Tuesday.