Mexico City, Jun 28 (SpillingTheBeans) — Cash differentials paid for arabica coffee in Central America remained firm this week against continuing low prices in the New York futures market.
Premiums for coffee from Guatemala, one of the countries most severely hit by the worst outbreak in history of the leaf rust crop pest, were quoted at between 24 cents per pound and 26 c/lb. Hard beans from Guatemala are no longer available,
Hard beans from Costa Rica were quoted at premiums between 15 and 16 c/lb, while SHB Costas are quoted between 24 and 26 c/lb. El Salvador, where like in Guatemala between 50 and 70 percent of the entire coffee area is hit byt varying degrees of rust, have little coffee left and nothing offered, but traders say exporters and producer groups are willing to sell HG beans at premiums between 8 and 10 c/lb and SHB at premiums between 14 and 16 c/lb. Higher volume offers attract the slightly cheaper differentials. Nicaraguan SHG are on par with those of El Salvador.
Honduras and Mexico, long the region’s cheapest source of top-quality coffee, were attracting offers at between 8 and 9 cents premiums for Honduran SHG and Mexican HG EPs. More commercial Mexican and Honduras grades are still available in insignificant volumes starting at about 5 cents premium.
As an interesting indicator of the severety of the rust disaster, premiums for fresh beans picked in the last two months in Peru surged, with top-quality MCMs fetching premiums as high as 10 cents per pound and MC beans keeping up well at levels mostly quoted between 6 and 7 cents.
All values are quoted against the September ICE contract in New York, FOB for delivery between July and August.
Flashes
June 28, 2013
My name is Maja and I’m a Danish born woman crazy beyond passionate about everything coffee. I have written about all aspects of coffee for over 25 years from 60 coffee producing countries across the world.
Leave a Reply