Liffe coffee, cocoa fall in commodities sell-off

* Liffe May robusta coffee ends down $49 at $2,508 a tonne. Drop in coffee prices led by slide in ICE arabicas.

* Liffe May cocoa ends down 15 pounds at 2,244 pounds a tonne. London cocoa pushed lower by sharp drop in ICE futures due to long liquidation.

* Liffe May white sugar falls $23.50 to close at $727.60 a tonne. Market remains rangebound, turning lower on investor selling, under pressure from slide in ICE raw sugar futures.

In Jan, Brazil Coffee Expport jumps

* Earnings on coffee exports soar 71 percent from yr. ago

* New York May coffee futures tumble in afternoon trade

Brazil shipped 2.42 million 60-kg bags of unroasted, green coffee in February, up 19 percent from the 2.03 million bags exported in the same month last year, the Council of Coffee Exporters said on thursday.

Exports are higher this year partly on account of last year's harvest falling in an "on year" in the biennial cycle, making for a larger harvest than in the previous season. The 2011/12 crop harvesting from May, falls in a lower-output year.

Total shipments including roasted and ground coffees reached 2.66 million bags in February, up 18 percent from 2.26 million bags in the same month of 2010, Cecafe data showed.

COFFEE FORECAST TODAY & Yesterday's MARKET CLOSE REVIEW

Arabica coffee futures closed down nearly 5 percent on Thursday, careening down from Wednesday's 34-year top, although market watchers expected the uptrend to resume.

* May arabica coffee futures slumped 14.30 cents, or 4.9 percent, to settle at $2.8055 per lb.

* Market tumbled along with commodity-wide sell-off, triggering profit-taking and sell stops in an overdue correction after hitting a 34-year top Wednesday - traders.

* Heavy put selling on the options market also weighed on the market - traders.

* Brazil shipped 2.66 million 60-kg bags of coffee, both roasted and unroasted or green, in February, up 18 percent from 2.26 million bags shipped in the same month last year - Cecafe.

* A potentially devastating storm is brewing in the world's physical coffee market, where a double whammy is hitting the companies that get beans from the farm gate to the cafe table. *****

Green Mountain & Starbucks aggree for single-serve

* Starbucks to provide coffee, tea for Keurig in fall 2011

* Starbucks cafes to sell Keurig brewer, K-cups in 2012

* Green Mountain shares up 40 pct; Starbucks up 10 pct

* Peet's Coffee down 12 pct

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK, March 11, Starbucks Corp and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc are joining forces to dominate the fast-growing $4 billion U.S. single-serve coffee market, sending shares in both names skyrocketing.
 

The partnership between the world's biggest coffee chain and the company that controls about 80 percent of the North American single-serve brewing segment poses a formidable challenge for rivals from Peet's Coffee & Tea Inc to Kraft Foods Inc.

Cocoa Falls as Gbagbo Orders Companies to Export; Coffee Drops

March 10 -- Cocoa fell the most in more than two months in London after President Laurent Gbagbo ordered companies to export beans from Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer. Coffee dropped.

Companies were told to export by the end of this month, or face sanctions, according to Ahoua Don Mello, spokesman for Gbagbo’s government. Gbagbo refuses to leave office and took control of local cocoa purchases and exports three days ago, escalating a conflict with rival Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of a November election.

“The market is a bit overbought in the near term, and a correction was needed,” Connor Noonan, an analyst at Castlestone Management Ltd. in London, said in an e-mail today. “This, coupled with Gbagbo announcing that he was going to export yesterday, has taken some of the initial fear of shortages out of the market.”

March export coffee drops: Uganda

* March exports seen at 180,000 bags
* Bad weather weighs on production

KAMPALA, - Uganda, Africa's second-biggest coffee exporter, expects sales to drop 17 percent in March compared with a year ago as the season tails off and due to poor weather, a source at the industry regulator said on Wednesday.

The east African grower exported 217,809 60-kg bags in March 2010 and could sell 180,000 bags this month, the fourth such drop in sales in a row, an official at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) said.

coffee output to 133.7m bags

LONDON, - World 2010-11 coffee output has been revised slightly lower to 133.7 million 60-kg bags, but will still comfortably exceed the previous year, the International Coffee Organisation said in its monthly update on Wednesday.

The revised figure compares with the ICO's previous 2010-11 estimate of 134.8 million 60-kg bags and 2009-10 estimated output of 123.1 million 60-kg bags.

While supply is expected to rise, coffee prices remained underpinned by a shortage of high quality beans.

Coffee markets traded at mutli-year highs on Wednesday, partly due to several lower than average crops from key high quality bean producer Colombia.