Cocoa futures on the ICE exchange tumbled to two-year lows on Tuesday on talk that excess beans were piling up at ports in top grower Ivory Coast.
COCOA
* London cocoa closed the session down 8.3% at 3,347 pounds per metric ton after earlier hitting 3,315 pounds per ton, its lowest level since January 2024.
* Ivory Coast's agriculture ministry told Reuters earlier that the country's cocoa regulator will buy 100,000 metric tons of surplus cocoa.
* The surplus came about because the cocoa regulator had set this season's farmgate price at a high level, spurring an influx of beans from Ghana, Liberia and Guinea.
* Dealers, for their part, cited talk that the excess beans were piling up at ports because of a lack of government-issued export licences and thanks to enthusiastic selling by farmers keen to take advantage of the farmgate price.
* Industry newsletter CocoaRadar said Ivorian farmer groups are meanwhile accusing multinationals of deliberately slowing their cocoa purchases in a bid to force a reduction in the farmgate price.
* In weather news, Ivorian cocoa farmers said on Monday below-average rains combined with sunny intervals last week had been beneficial for the upcoming April-to-September mid-crop.
* New York cocoa closed down 8.4% at $4,648 a ton, having earlier hit a two-year low of $4,612.
COFFEE
* Arabica coffee ended the session down 2.5% at $3.465 per lb, its lowest level since Dec. 24 last year.
* Dealers said estimates for top grower Brazil's 26/27 crop remain broadly unchanged between 70-80 million bags and that weather conditions remain generally favourable.
* Robusta coffee fell 1.9% to close at $3,941 per ton.
SUGAR
* Raw sugar settled down 1.6% to 14.72 cents per lb, having hit its lowest in nearly a month last week.
* Dealers said sugar has a near-term positive bias because technical spreads are firmed up and this might cool farmer interest in selling at current price levels.
* White sugar closed down 1.2% at $422.50 a ton.
(Reuters)
