On Thursday, March arabica coffee prices closed down by $2.30, or 0.66%, reaching four-month lows. The January ICE robusta coffee also fell by $25, marking the same percentage decline. This drop follows reports of ample rainfall in Brazil, easing fears over crop development, with Minas Gerais receiving 79.8 mm of rain, or 155% of the historical average for the week ending December 12.
Brazil’s crop forecasting agency, Conab, revised its 2025 coffee production estimate upward by 2.4% to 56.54 million bags. Additionally, Vietnam’s November coffee exports surged by 39% year-over-year to 88,000 metric tons, raising concerns over robusta coffee supplies. U.S. purchases of Brazilian coffee fell by 52% from August to October due to high tariffs, although those tariffs have since been eased.
Despite these declines, there are some supportive signals for coffee prices, as ICE-monitored arabica inventories dropped to a 1.75-year low of 398,645 bags before recovering to 432,672 bags. The International Coffee Organization noted a 0.3% year-over-year decrease in global coffee exports for the current marketing year, totaling 138.658 million bags.
