Onome Amuge
Cocoa prices rose on Monday to their highest level in more than a week, lifted by mounting weather disruptions in West Africa that are threatening crop yields and tightening near-term supplies in the world’s largest producing region.
Benchmark December contracts on ICE New York gained 3 per cent to close at $7,655 a tonne, their strongest level since early September, while London cocoa rose 2.2 per cent to £5,226 per tonne.
The rally was driven by heavy rainfall in Ivory Coast, the top grower, which has kept farmers out of the fields and slowed the movement of beans from plantations to ports. At the same time, dry conditions in neighbouring Ghana and Nigeria have damaged crops, with cocoa pods withering under insufficient precipitation. Traders and analysts warned that the patchwork of excessive rainfall and drought risks could threaten the outlook for the main-crop harvest that begins in October.
“The weather divergence across West Africa is creating significant uncertainty at a critical point in the growing season,” said Steve Waterman, senior commodities analyst at Marex.
Tighter inventories have added momentum to the rally. ICE-monitored cocoa stocks held in US ports fell to 2.09 million bags on Friday, their lowest level since May, underscoring near-term tightness in global supply chains. The slowdown in the pace of Ivorian exports also supported prices. Government data published Monday showed farmers shipped 1.82 million tonnes of cocoa to ports since the start of the marketing year on October 1, 5.8 per cent higher than the same period last year but well down from the blistering 35 per cent year-on-year pace recorded in December.
Quality issues are compounding supply risks. Rabobank analysts said the Ivorian mid-crop, currently being harvested and running through September, has suffered from late rains that reduced pod development, resulting in smaller and lower-quality beans. The mid-crop, typically the smaller of the country’s two annual harvests, is estimated at 400,000 tonnes this year, 9 per cent below last year’s 440,000 tonnes.
Nigeria, the world’s fifth-largest producer, is also expected to see lower output. The country’s Cocoa Association projects production for the 2025/26 season will fall 11 per cent to 305,000 tonnes from a projected 344,000 tonnes this year. That drop comes despite a 0.9 per cent year-on-year rise in exports in June.
