Assessment of world cocoa bean stocks for 2014-15

London, 28 January 2016 — The ICCO Expert Working Group on Stocks (EWGS) met today, Thursday 28 January 2016, to review the level of world cocoa bean stocks. The EWGS is composed of experts in the cocoa field who meet once a year, at the invitation of the ICCO, to review and analyse the results of the ICCO’s annual survey of cocoa stocks held in warehouses worldwide. The survey is conducted every year since 2000 and aims to improve transparency in the cocoa market.

The result of the latest survey showed that world cocoa bean stocks rose to 1.505 million tonnes as at the end of the 2014/2015 cocoa year (30 September 2015), representing stock levels at 3,000 tonnes higher than the previous year. This result appeared to show a smaller supply surplus than the one published by the ICCO in November 2015 in its latest Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics (QBCS), estimated at 36,000 tonnes for the 2014/15 season.

 

Location of cocoa bean stocks	30 September 2014	30 September 2015	Difference
			(year-on-year)
	(thousands of tonnes)	(thousands oftonnes)	(thousands of tonnes)
STOCKS IN COCOA IMPORTING COUNTRIES	1,021	1,111	89
of which:
Europe	677	763	86
Licensed US warehouse stocks	254	244	-10
STOCKS IN COCOA PRODUCING COUNTRIES	413	316	-97
COCOA BEANS IN TRANSIT	68	78	11
TOTAL ESTIMATED	1,502	1,505	3
WORLD COCOA BEAN STOCKS (ICCO survey)
Total world stocks (statistically-derived) QBCS	1,565	1,601	36

Totals and differences may differ due to rounding

 

The EWGS would like to note that caution should be exercised in the interpretation of the difference between the results of the survey and the statistically derived stocks.

The ICCO Secretariat maintains, so far, its supply surplus estimate of 36,000 tonnes for 2014/15 as published in its latestQBCS, and to be revised only in its next Bulletin due at the end of February 2016, taking into account the outcome of this survey.