Cocoa exports from Ivory Coast are set to resume May 14 after the seizure of the country's incumbent president, said the largest shipping operator between Europe and Ivory Coast, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Gerd Wildgrube, head of import traffic from Africa into Germany at CMA CGM, told Dow Jones Newswires its first chartered vessel will discharge at Abidjan port May 14 and arrive in Hamburg May 27.
After that, exports will resume on a weekly basis depending on the security situation in Ivory Coast, he said. A unit of Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk said it hoped to restart exports Wednesday.
"It seems unrealistic this week that vessels will be able to depart from there this week," Mr. Wildgrube said. He declined to comment on exact quantities to be moved.
Forces loyal to Ivory Coast's elected President Alassane Ouattara said they seized Laurent Gbagbo from his residence, bringing to a head a protracted conflict between two presidential rivals that had tilted the world's largest cocoa producer toward civil war.
Nearly all shipments of cocoa have been stalled since Mr. Ouattara called for an export ban in January in a bid to squeeze the purse strings of his rival. Ivory Coast supplies about one-third of the world's cocoa, and cocoa accounts for almost a third of the country's gross domestic product.
Hopes that hundreds of thousands of tons of stocks could be released were given a boost Friday when the European Union lifted sanctions, allowing shippers to enter Abidjan and the top cocoa-exporting terminal San Pedro.
But dealers remained cautious, saying it could take weeks before any cocoa is moved out of the country as both the financial and physical infrastructure needed to release the stocks held in Ivory Coast remains paralyzed.
One trader said there is little equipment available to load the ships and many of the workers have fled the violence. More than one million people have been displaced and hundreds were killed during the four-month-long conflict, according to United Nations agencies.
Andreas Christiansen, chairman of the German Cocoa Trade Association, said supplies held in the ports, which dealers estimate at more than 400,000 tons, can only be moved when export duties have been paid, but the closure of the banking system makes this almost impossible.
"I doubt the [export duties] have been affected yet, insofar [as] the banking system here is also the bottleneck," Mr. Christiansen said.
An additional 150,000 tons of unhedged cocoa is also being held upstate, he said. It could take between four and six weeks for these supplies to be transported to the ports, Mr. Christiansen said.
"Cocoa will only be moved against cash, and first the banking system needs to be workable again," he said.
International banks left Ivory Coast amid a cash crunch brought on by the foreign sanctions. BNP Paribas declined to comment on the matter, but Société Générale and Standard Chartered PLC said they are monitoring the situation closely.
"We hope to be able to re-commence activity as soon as possible, but it is premature to comment on a specific timeframe," a Société Générale spokeswoman said.
Cocoa futures in both the U.S. and the U.K. shrugged off the news. Benchmark May futures traded on London's Liffe exchange were up 0.8% at £1,914 ($3,132) a metric ton. In New York, the May contract was up 1.5% at $3,020 a ton on the IntercontinentalExchange.
"There are so many things simmering they're going to keep this market nervous for now," said a London-based cocoa trader. "There's still a long way to go before we get back to normal."
Gerd Wildgrube, head of import traffic from Africa into Germany at CMA CGM, told Dow Jones Newswires its first chartered vessel will discharge at Abidjan port May 14 and arrive in Hamburg May 27.
After that, exports will resume on a weekly basis depending on the security situation in Ivory Coast, he said. A unit of Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk said it hoped to restart exports Wednesday.
"It seems unrealistic this week that vessels will be able to depart from there this week," Mr. Wildgrube said. He declined to comment on exact quantities to be moved.
Forces loyal to Ivory Coast's elected President Alassane Ouattara said they seized Laurent Gbagbo from his residence, bringing to a head a protracted conflict between two presidential rivals that had tilted the world's largest cocoa producer toward civil war.
Nearly all shipments of cocoa have been stalled since Mr. Ouattara called for an export ban in January in a bid to squeeze the purse strings of his rival. Ivory Coast supplies about one-third of the world's cocoa, and cocoa accounts for almost a third of the country's gross domestic product.
Hopes that hundreds of thousands of tons of stocks could be released were given a boost Friday when the European Union lifted sanctions, allowing shippers to enter Abidjan and the top cocoa-exporting terminal San Pedro.
But dealers remained cautious, saying it could take weeks before any cocoa is moved out of the country as both the financial and physical infrastructure needed to release the stocks held in Ivory Coast remains paralyzed.
One trader said there is little equipment available to load the ships and many of the workers have fled the violence. More than one million people have been displaced and hundreds were killed during the four-month-long conflict, according to United Nations agencies.
Andreas Christiansen, chairman of the German Cocoa Trade Association, said supplies held in the ports, which dealers estimate at more than 400,000 tons, can only be moved when export duties have been paid, but the closure of the banking system makes this almost impossible.
"I doubt the [export duties] have been affected yet, insofar [as] the banking system here is also the bottleneck," Mr. Christiansen said.
An additional 150,000 tons of unhedged cocoa is also being held upstate, he said. It could take between four and six weeks for these supplies to be transported to the ports, Mr. Christiansen said.
"Cocoa will only be moved against cash, and first the banking system needs to be workable again," he said.
International banks left Ivory Coast amid a cash crunch brought on by the foreign sanctions. BNP Paribas declined to comment on the matter, but Société Générale and Standard Chartered PLC said they are monitoring the situation closely.
"We hope to be able to re-commence activity as soon as possible, but it is premature to comment on a specific timeframe," a Société Générale spokeswoman said.
Cocoa futures in both the U.S. and the U.K. shrugged off the news. Benchmark May futures traded on London's Liffe exchange were up 0.8% at £1,914 ($3,132) a metric ton. In New York, the May contract was up 1.5% at $3,020 a ton on the IntercontinentalExchange.
"There are so many things simmering they're going to keep this market nervous for now," said a London-based cocoa trader. "There's still a long way to go before we get back to normal."