The surge in cocoa prices continues unstoppable, setting new records almost daily on the markets of New York and London, driven by catastrophic harvests in Ivory Coast and Ghanathe two largest producers, due to the heavy rains and plant diseases that the excess humidity has caused.
The supply deficit has prices have more than doubled in the main markets of the USA and the United Kingdom since the beginning of 2023, which now far exceed the peaks reached in 2011, when the serious post-election crisis of 2010-2011 in Côte d’Ivoire caused more than 3 thousand deaths. Yesterday, the contract for May delivery, traded in London, reached a new all-time high at £4,248 per tonne. The counterparty traded in New York, for delivery in March, hit its highest level in more than 46 years, at $5,288 per tonne.“
“It seems like it is only a matter of time before the price of cocoa in New York reaches its 1977 all-time high of $5,379 a ton,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank. Ivory Coast is the leading cocoa producing country in the world, followed by Ghana. The two countries together provided nearly 60% of total production for the 2022/23 crop, according to estimates from the International Cocoa Organization.
But in recent months the plant diseases developed due to heavy rains – first of all the black pod disease – have decimated production, so much so that they have reduced the Coffee-Cocoa Council, the industry regulatory body in Côte d’Ivoire, a suspend the sale of export contracts for the current campaign.
Also of concern is the El Nino climate phenomenon, which threatens West African crops with a hot and dry climate, explains Jack Scoville, analyst at Price Futures Group.
+ There are no comments
Add yours