Vietnam Coffee-Stocks thin, premiums to London widen
    * Exporters buy from foreign trading firms
   * Premiums widen to $50/tonne this week

   By Ho Binh Minh 
   HANOI, June 14 (Reuters) - Thinning stocks in Vietnam, the
world's top robusta coffee producer, have hindered new deals
this week and stopped exporters purchasing from farmers for
loading, which has in turn lifted export costs, traders said on
Tuesday.

   The thin stocks in Vietnam, the world's second-largest
producer after Brazil, coupled with an ICO forecast of a fall in
global production in the next 2011/2012 crop, could push prices
up further in coming weeks.  
   Exporters are having to buy beans from several foreign
trading firms that have stocks in their Vietnamese warehouses as
farmers have stopped selling, traders said. 
   Stocks have dwindled in Vietnam, now in the period between
harvests, with one having ended last December and the next due
to start from November in the Central Highlands coffee belt. 
   "There is a real shortage of beans for domestic trade and
export," a Vietnamese dealer working for a foreign trading firm
in Ho Chi Minh City said. "Small trading companies and even some
major exporters are experiencing a shortage now."  

   Traders said foreign firms sold robusta to exporters at
premiums of $20-$30 a tonne to London's September contract
which ended up $38 at $2,471 a tonne on Monday. 
   Exporters then offered robusta grade 2, 5 percent black and
broken at a premium of $50 a tonne to the September contract,
against $20-$60 a tonne last Wednesday. 

   Their export quotations rose to $2,511-$2,521 a tonne this
week, free on board, from $2,479-$2,489 last Tuesday. 
  
   Vietnam's coffee exports in June could drop to between
65,000 tonnes and 80,000 tonnes, or 1.08 million to 1.33 million
bags, from 110,000 tonnes in estimated shipments last month,
traders have said.      
   SPECULATORS HOLD BACK SALES 
   In domestic markets, local speculators, including rich
farmers who do not need to sell right away, offered beans at 51
million dong ($2,483) per tonne, well above the range of
49.3-50.2 million dong that exporters sought to buy at. 
   "It seems that stocks are now flat, or the volume left over
is very insignificant," a trader said by telephone from Buon Ma
Thuot, the capital of Daklak, Vietnam's top coffee province. 
   Farmers held back their stocks after the Agriculture
Ministry forecast domestic prices could rise to 55-60 million
dong a tonne in the second half of 2011 due to tight global
supplies. 
   Global coffee output in 2011/12 is expected to fall slightly
to around 130 million 60-kg bags from 133 million in 2010/11,
the International Coffee Organization forecast on Monday. 

($1=20,540 dong)   
 
(Editing by Alan Raybould)  
   

Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:43:10RTRS