Cocoa prices fall to 3 year lows as surplus expected to rise

Cocoa fell to three-year lows in London and New York on speculation output in top producer Ivory Coast will add to a global surplus. Coffee rose in London. Ivorian cocoa production will be 1.43 million metric tonnes in the 2011-12 season, higher than previously estimated at 1.385 million tonnes, Lome, Togo-based lender Ecobank Transnational said in a report yesterday. Global supplies will outpace demand by 32,000 tonnes this season, London-based brokerage Marex Spectron Group estimates. "The 2011-12 season has got off to a good start, with reports of good rains interspersed with sunny spells in most cocoa-growing regions," Edward George, a commodity specialist at Ecobank, wrote in a report emailed yesterday. Cocoa for March delivery fell as much as 0.9 per cent to £1,408 (Dh8,083) a tonne, the lowest price for a most-active contract since November 2008, on NYSE Liffe in London. It was unchanged at £1,420 at 11:05am local time. In New York, cocoa for March delivery fell as much as 0.6 per cent to $2,192 a tonne, the lowest since December 2008, and was up 0.1 per cent at $2,208 a tonne most recently. Ivory Coast's crop was a record 1.48 million tonnes last season, Ecobank said. Purchases of cocoa from farmers in Ghana, the world's second-biggest grower, rose 16 per cent to 376,485 tonnes in the first six weeks of the season to November 24, Kwabena Asante Poku, deputy chief executive officer of the Accra-based Ghana Cocoa Board, said by phone on Monday. Money managers increased their net-short position, or bets on lower prices, in London cocoa to 5,995 futures as of November 29, from 5,061 contracts a week earlier, according to the weekly commitments of traders report published on the NYSE Liffe exchange's website on Monday.