Cocoa Prices Rebound on Outlook for Declining West African Output
Commodity
Cocoa prices rebounded today as the outlook for declining West African production spurred fund buying. September ICE NY cocoa rose 72 dollars, or 1.25 percent, and September ICE London cocoa gained 5 pounds, or 0.12 percent, with London gains limited by a stronger British pound. Ghana’s cocoa regulator COCOBOD projected on July 30 that the country’s 2026-27 production could fall to between 450,000 and 550,000 metric tons from 750,000 metric tons projected for 2025-26, citing swollen shoot disease, aging farms, and likely adverse El Niño weather. Transgraph Consulting forecast on July 23 that the global cocoa surplus in 2026-2027 will shrink to 80,000 metric tons from 415,000 metric tons in 2025-2026, mainly due to an expected production decline to 4.87 million metric tons from 5.11 million metric tons. Early surveys of the 2026-27 Ivory Coast crop show below-average cherelle formation, with an average estimate of 1.8 million metric tons for the main harvest starting in September, down 18 percent from about 2.2 million metric tons in 2025-26. StoneX on July 29 cut its 2026-27 global cocoa surplus estimate to 25,000 metric tons from a forecast of 149,000 metric tons in April, citing El Niño risks to the West African crop. Larger supplies from Ghana, where 750,000 metric tons have been harvested for the 2025-26 season, up 25.6 percent from the prior year, and rising ICE inventories to a two-year high of 3,384,965 bags are bearish factors. Ivory Coast farmers shipped 2.11 million metric tons of cocoa to ports in the current marketing year through August 2, up 20 percent from a year ago, while Nigerian exports rose 30 percent in June. Second-quarter cocoa demand was mixed, with European grindings falling 4.6 percent to 316,366 metric tons, North American grindings unexpectedly rising 7.7 percent to 109,659 metric tons, and Asian grindings surging 25 percent to 224,646 metric tons.
