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The sector regulator in Ivory Coast, the Coffee and Cocoa Council, fears that the delay in the start of the 2026/2027 main harvest will generate severe congestion in the country's ports.
The risk stems from exporters' rush to dispatch their shipments before the European Union's strict anti-deforestation regulations come into force at the end of the year.
Despite operational alerts raised by industry sources, the regulatory body of the world's leading cocoa producer recently assured that the African nation is prepared to meet the new demands of the European market.
Despite official statements, the cocoa industry in Ivory Coast anticipates a critical scenario for the end of the year. Sources from the sector's own regulator and five exporting companies warned that the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro will face severe congestion between November and December 2026, a situation that threatens to collapse local storage capacity.
The bottleneck is due to a projected eight to ten-week delay in the main harvest. According to operators, the delay is a product of adverse weather conditions, lack of maintenance in plantations, and the unusual extension of the mid-crop harvest, factors that slowed down the production cycle.
"We will be forced to export massive volumes in a very limited timeframe during the month of December," warned an executive from a European trading company in Abidjan.
In view of the saturation scenario, representatives of the Coffee and Cocoa Council assured that the body will exhaust efforts to mitigate the operational impact. However, sector projections indicate that, although the official season starts on September 1, weekly deliveries will barely reach 15,000 metric tons during September and will not exceed 25,000 tons in October.
The bulk of the production will begin to enter the terminals towards the end of October or early November, intensifying sharply during December.
For the full cycle (ending February 28, 2027), the regulator estimates a maximum harvest of 1.4 million tons, in line with exporters' projections, who calculate a ceiling of 1.45 million metric tons.
Of this total volume, it is expected that some 900,000 tons will enter Ivorian ports in a concentrated manner between October and December 2026.
While this figure is below the 1.1 million tons recorded in the same period of 2025 and within the usual historical average (800,000 to 1 million tons), the narrow time window to process shipments before the European regulatory change threatens to overload the local logistics chain.
Source: Portal Portuario
