The world cocoa market will move to a supply deficit of 100,000 tonnes in the current crop year, on the back of a small surplus in 2014/15, an influential softs broker said on Thursday. At JSG Commodities' annual symposium, Eric Bergman, a cocoa trader at the Connecticut-based brokerage, said the world will see a deficit as production falls by 150,000 tonnes. That would be down from 2014-15 production of 4.2 million tonnes, he said.
The projected deficit follows a surplus of 25,000 tonnes in the 2014/15 crop year that ran through September. Bergman expected grindings to remain unchanged and forecast prices of between $3,100 and $3,600 per tonne. The benchmark New York cocoa contract on ICE Futures US traded at $3,347 per tonne on Thursday. The world cocoa market has been hit by uncertainty over whether the world will see another deficit this year amid weather worries in top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana that could offset declining demand growth.