Coffee Futures Market Weekly Update
A major earthquake in Colombia dominated the week. The magnitude 7.4 quake that struck western Colombia on Monday, August 10 effectively halted exports from the world's second-largest arabica origin, lifting September arabica (KCU26) to a 5-week high of 335.75c on Tuesday and a 339.80c high close on Wednesday. News of a partial restart at the port of Buenaventura then knocked the market down -2.06% on Thursday, before a +1.50% (+5.00c) rebound on Friday to approximately 337.80c — a net weekly gain of +0.66% (+2.20c). ICE certified arabica stocks fell to a 2.75-year low of 236,430 bags.
Note: September (KCU26) remains the reference contract and there was no roll versus the prior report. Monday's 332.30c and Tuesday's 335.75c are confirmed settles (Comunicaffe). Thursday's 332.80c is cross-checked between Barchart (-7.00c / -2.06%) and Comunicaffe's December print (312.80c, -2.2%) via the roughly 20c September–December spread. Wednesday (~339.80c) and Friday (~337.80c) settles are derived from Barchart percentage moves; Friday's +5.00c / +1.50% is internally consistent with Thursday's 332.80c (5.00 ÷ 332.80 = 1.50%). The prior Friday baseline of 335.60c is back-solved from Comunicaffe's "Monday fell almost 1% to 332.30c." Friday's robusta settle (~$3,625) is derived (London November confirmed at $3,644 on Thursday). CFTC net positioning and exchange volume could not be confirmed across two independent sources and are excluded. A "312c" figure for 8/14 cited by some outlets appears to reference the December contract and was not adopted as the front-month settle.
One event drove the entire week. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia on the morning of Monday, August 10 (epicenter near San José del Palmar, depth 107 km) killed more than 250 people with around 2,000 missing, and hit the core of Colombia's coffee belt: Risaralda, Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Antioquia, Chocó and Quindío. Caldas and Risaralda alone account for roughly a quarter of Colombian production.
What actually moved the market was logistics, not farm damage. The port of Buenaventura — which handles more than 60% of Colombia's coffee exports — was paralysed, and the Cali–Buenaventura highway, the main access route, was severed at several points, particularly in tunnel sections. Exporters' association Asoexport estimated that with Colombia shipping roughly one million bags a month, a week of disruption equates to about 250,000 bags, 600-plus trucks and over 1,000 containers backed up.
Prices tracked the headlines. Monday opened the week lower at 332.30c (about -1%) on dry, harvest-friendly Brazilian weather. Tuesday, after Maersk announced that Buenaventura terminal operations were temporarily suspended, September settled at 335.75c (+1.04%), a 5-week high, with an intraday print near 339.7c. Wednesday produced the week's highest close at approximately 339.80c. On Thursday, a Bloomberg report that shipments through Buenaventura had partially resumed sent the market down -2.06% to 332.80c. Friday reasserted the tightness — with traffic still intermittent and limited and stocks at a 2.75-year low — and September rebounded +1.50% to approximately 337.80c.
Core dynamic of the week: the market priced the quake as a timing loss, not a production loss. Asoexport's confirmation that there was no serious structural damage to processing and milling facilities capped the upside, while the recognition that the logistics bottleneck delays replenishment of already 2.75-year-low ICE certified stocks supported the downside. The modest +0.66% net weekly move reflects these two forces nearly offsetting.
The market implication of this earthquake is delayed supply, not destroyed supply. According to Asoexport, no serious structural damage was reported at coffee processing and milling facilities; disruption stems from power outages, communications failures, the personal toll on workers who lost homes, and severed roads. Some production units in Quindío were already back in operation by Wednesday.
The real issue is the lag in the bottleneck. Asoexport warned that even once Buenaventura normalises, accumulated coffee moving at once will create port congestion and shipping delays. Origins with no direct damage — Huila, Tolima, Cauca, Nariño — are struggling to source trucks to divert to the Caribbean ports of Cartagena, Santa Marta and Puerto Antioquia.
Implication: Colombia is the world's largest supplier of washed arabica, the grade that is also a core replenishment source for ICE certified stocks. This disruption therefore bears more directly on the August–October certified-stock recovery path than on the annual supply-demand balance. Even without any downgrade to production estimates, the trough in exchange stocks is now likely to be lower and to last longer.
ICE certified arabica stocks fell every session: 242,673 bags (8/10) → 241,838 (8/11) → 240,285 (8/12) → 236,430 (8/13). That is -7,742 bags (-3.2%) from the prior Friday's 244,172, and roughly -68% year on year against approximately 750,000 bags a year ago. Robusta moved the other way, with 4,364 lots marking a 5-month high.
This arabica–robusta inventory divergence was mirrored in prices. Arabica gained +0.66% on the week while September robusta fell roughly -3.6% to approximately $3,625/t.
Safras & Mercado put Brazil's 2026/27 harvest at 90% as of August 12, versus 97% last year and a five-year average of 94%. Arabica at 86% lags last year's 95% by nine points, a wider gap than the total. Cooxúpé members were at 74.6% as of August 7 (80.4% a year ago).
Importantly, the deficit is shrinking. On July 15, Safras had the harvest at 64% versus 77% a year earlier — a 13-point gap; by August 12 that had narrowed to seven points. Dry weather supported picking and patio drying: Somar Meteorologia reported 5.8 mm of rain in Minas Gerais in the week ended August 9, or 92% of the historical average.
July's Cecafé data was the week's most instructive release. Total exports rose to 3,029,584 bags (+9.9% y/y), but the gain was carried entirely by robusta at 851,235 bags (+84.4%) while arabica fell to 1,818,144 bags (-8.9%), the lowest July since 2018.
This is statistical confirmation of the season's paradox: a record crop on paper, tight arabica spot in practice. Production forecasts remain bullish in volume terms. The USDA sees 2026/27 world output at a record 189.7 million bags (+6.0%) and Brazil at 71.9 million bags (+14%); CONAB forecasts 66.7 million bags (+18%; arabica 45.7–45.8 million, robusta 20.9 million). More aggressive private numbers have circulated — Marex at 75.9 million bags (+15.5%) and StoneX at 75.3 million — cited here from a single source and not independently cross-confirmed. On the robusta side, Vietnam's January–July exports rose +21.1% to 1.31 MMT.
USD/BRL closed at 5.2136 on August 14 (+0.18% on the day), the weakest level for the real in over a month, with the currency down roughly 2.4% over the past month. A weaker real raises producers' local-currency receipts and typically encourages Brazilian selling — a classic bearish input. That arabica still gained +0.66% against this currency headwind suggests the Colombia disruption premium was stronger than the headline weekly move implies.
The US Climate Prediction Center warned on July 8 that this year's El Niño could be one of the strongest in more than 75 years. Trade house Commercial has flagged that El Niño may delay Brazil's September–October rains, when trees normally flower. This is a risk to the crop after the one currently being harvested, and retains its character as an asymmetric upside option against the record-crop consensus.
1. The stock-recovery path is the new key variable: Colombia is the largest supplier of washed arabica and a primary replenishment source for ICE certified stocks. This disruption does not change production estimates, but it delays when and how fast already 2.75-year-low certified stocks recover. Over the next four to eight weeks, inventory data may matter more to price than the record-crop narrative.
2. A gain achieved against a weaker real signals real strength: arabica rose on the week even as USD/BRL weakened to 5.21, a one-month low for the real. Real weakness normally invites producer selling and caps prices. Absorbing that headwind suggests the supply-disruption premium is substantive rather than purely speculative.
3. Arabica–robusta decoupling is widening: arabica +0.66% versus robusta -3.6%; arabica stocks at a 2.75-year low versus robusta stocks at a 5-month high; Vietnamese exports +21.1%. The economics of shifting blend ratios toward robusta are improving, and roasters should reflect the widening spread in procurement strategy.
4. Watch how fast the event premium decays: Thursday's -2.06% shows that a single normalisation headline can erase the premium quickly. Roasters and importers should avoid chasing quake-driven spikes, while recognising that pullbacks are also limited as long as inventories fail to recover.
5. Second-order logistics effects: even after the port reopens, the simultaneous release of accumulated volume produces congestion, shipping delays and truck shortages. The effective duration of the disruption extends weeks beyond normalisation. The most urgent practical step is to re-confirm shipment schedules for September–October arrivals.
The structure is an event-driven, high-volatility range. Support sits at 332c (weekly low close), 325c and 320c; resistance at 340c (weekly high close), 345c and 363–370c. Direction will likely be set by two variables: the pace of normalisation at Buenaventura and the trend in ICE certified stocks. Further drawdown from the 236,000-bag area would retest 340c resistance; fast logistics normalisation plus rising pending-grading volume would test 330c support.
Technical view: a narrow 332.30–339.80c range on a closing basis. Friday's ~337.80c sits in the upper half of that band, giving a modest near-term bullish bias. A break above 340c opens air to 345c; a loss of 332c puts 325c in play. Thin liquidity leaves scope for two-way gaps on Colombia and inventory headlines.
The medium-term anchor remains record supply — 189.7 million bags globally and 71.9 million from Brazil, with private estimates above 75 million. Offsetting this are (1) 2.75-year-low certified stocks, (2) delayed Colombian logistics normalisation, (3) Brazilian arabica exports at their lowest July since 2018, and (4) El Niño flowering risk. The base case remains "structural downward pressure punctuated by disruption-driven spikes", unchanged from last week, though near-term downside risk has narrowed as a result of this week's event.
This week was a compressed demonstration of how a natural disaster transmits to price through logistics. Colombia's magnitude 7.4 earthquake did not so much destroy productive capacity as sever the export route, and the market priced it precisely as a timeliness premium. Tuesday's 5-week high at 335.75c, Wednesday's ~339.80c high close and Thursday's -2.06% break on the Buenaventura partial-restart report are two sides of the same logic.
The modest net move — +0.66%, from 335.60c to approximately 337.80c — shows the event premium and normalisation expectations nearly cancelling. Three residual factors remain. First, ICE certified stocks keep falling, now at a 2.75-year low of 236,430 bags. Second, Brazil's July arabica exports were the lowest for the month since 2018, meaning the record crop has yet to convert into shipments. Third, prices rose despite the real at a one-month low of 5.21. All three point to genuine tightness in arabica spot.
Trading summary: a near-term 330–345c event-driven range, with 332/325c support and 340/345c resistance as the pivots. Key monitors: (1) Buenaventura throughput and road repair, (2) the 230,000-bag line in ICE certified stocks, (3) the FNC's quantified damage assessment, (4) USD/BRL at 5.20, (5) the Safras and Cooxúpé harvest gap, (6) CPC El Niño updates.
For roasters and importers the practical lesson is clear: re-confirm September–October shipment schedules for Colombian origin immediately, and where necessary secure backup lines via Caribbean ports or alternative origins (Peru, Honduras, Brazilian semi-washed). On price, the balanced approach is to avoid chasing headline-driven spikes while recognising that one-way bearish bets remain risky so long as inventories fail to recover from the 236,000-bag area.