Cashew market update – Date: 4 May 2020
Raw cashew nut (RCN): How to balance the price of raw materials and finished products.
The CFR prices of RCN Ivory Cote have gone up around 1150 USD/MT for the quality 47lbs and around above 1200 USD/t for the good quality (48/49 lbs).
RCN continue coming to warehouse from the farm
The best quality from Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia is not yet really available but negotiations have started around 1300 USD/t (52/53 lbs/bag) for the first exports expected at the end of May/start of June.
In Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso, prices skyrocketed at an unexpected speed this week.
African exporters find it difficult to get loans from their banks and letters of credit from their Asian customers, so their purchasing capacity is limited
The volatility of the cashew market is reaching incredible levels this year with an epidemic that makes the markets particularly unpredictable.
Harvest in African country is coming to an end with the lower quality of the nuts available
In Vietnam, the season comes to an end with the very low quality of nut available, price is high.
A lot of buying, selling activities, processors want to cover for the processing for May, June.
The supply chain which is currently resuming is still very precarious and is likely to work in stop & go.
In the short term, we think that demand should remain strong, at least until mid-May because Asian processors are clearly under-covered and can no longer wait to import, especially since exporters will not be able to deliver thousands of Metric Tons to them at once with the funding problems they face.
Cashew kernel market – Prices are going up, but for how long… hard to say
The international market further increased slightly at the start of the week and then seems to have found relative stability in recent days.
Very few processors accept to sell WW320 cashew kernels below 2.90 USD/lb FOB, and cashew kernel prices are therefore rising even if the price range does not change much.
As in the past weeks, broken kernel prices remain extremely low, but for these grades too, sales in the low range are scarce and average prices are slightly up.
