SECOND ESTIMATE OF THE WORLD COFFEE BALANCE 2014/15

摘要

New York arabica futures touched a 19-month low of 119.85 cents on July 27 as general market sentiment turned bearish. This follows a long period of significant uncertainty over the size of Brazil's 2014/15 and 2015/16 coffee crops after the country was hit by the most severe drought in eight decades in early 2014. While prices were still trading at a near-three year high of 225.50 cents/lb hit on October 6 the market eventually fell significantly as Brazil was able to maintain an impressive flow ofexports until recently, leading to the view that either the extent of the crop losses was overstated or/and the size of the country's stocks was understated. In fact, Brazil managed to export 37.1 mln 60-kg bags of coffee in its 2014/15 (Apr/Mar) crop year, the highest ever. While there are now again reports of smaller bean sizes in the current 2015/16 harvest the crop is still expected at about 45 mln bags, a far cry from the doomsday scenarios of as little as numbers in the mid-30s circulated by someplayers about a year ago. Given that this is coupled with a strong recovery in Colombian output this season more than offsetting reduced Central American harvests, the arabica market remains fairly well supplied for the time being.