Coffee traders scoop up robusta

New York

TRADERS have scooped up far forward robusta futures at record levels amid concerns that dry weather in top growers Brazil and Vietnam will ravage crops, tightening supplies as roasters buy fewer smoother-tasting but higher-priced arabica beans.

In one of the first concrete signs of increased interest in robusta, which is used in instant coffees and has a more bitter taste, liquidity in fifth-month contracts, for delivery in September, quadrupled to nearly 20,000 lots at the start of December. It peaked at a record 21,702 lots on Dec 12 and has hovered around those levels with 21,406 contracts outstanding as at Tuesday.