By Ange Aboa and Nigel Hunt
ABIDJAN/LONDON (Reuters) - Six major cocoa exporters are heeding a call by Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara for a ban on exports, a move designed to cut funds to incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo.
The appeal marks an escalation in efforts by Ouattara and international players to pressure Gbagbo to leave the presidency of the world's top cocoa grower after a November 28 election, which UN-certified results showed he lost.
World cocoa futures moved towards 30-year highs on Tuesday on worries over supply from the West African state, which grows a third of the global crop.
"We are buying but we are not registering (cocoa for export) with the BCC (regulatory body)," a senior official in one of the firms, who asked not to be named, said on Tuesday. "We are awaiting instruction from headquarters as well as more space in the warehouses at the port."
Five major exporting companies have stopped registrations, sources with knowledge of the firms' operations told Reuters on Tuesday, asking that the companies not be named. U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill, the top exporter of Ivorian beans, announced it had also suspended Ivorian purchases.
Together the six firms account for the majority of the Ivorian cocoa crop, according to a Reuters calculation.
The cocoa sector is seen as key to Gbagbo's grip on power, yielding an estimated $1 billion in tax revenues to the state each year. It is unclear how a ban on exports would affect Gbagbo, however, since the majority of the Ivorian harvest this season has already left the country's plantations.
Alassane Ouattara is internationally recognized as president of Ivory Coast after the November election, but he remains holed up in a hotel under U.N. guard, while Gbagbo retains control of the army and state institutions.
Ouattara made the request for a temporary export ban in a letter to industry players at the weekend, and his camp has said exporters risk sanctions if they violate it.
The Abidjan-based sources on Tuesday said that exports of beans already registered were continuing and that some beans were still being trucked to the port, where they are being warehoused but not registered.
A spokesman for Ouattara's parallel government, Patrick Achi, said on Tuesday: "We are satisfied. We are seeing that they have stopped (registering)."
WAREHOUSES FILLING UP
A Reuters reporter saw trucks loaded with beans driving through Abidjan's port area, but exporters said volumes arriving from up-country were less than the day before.
Several exporters warned that they had stopped, or would soon have to stop, buying more beans due to lack of warehouse space.
"People are trying to digest yesterday's move and are being very cautious at the moment," a London-based broker said.
Switzerland's Barry Callebaut, the world's largest chocolate maker, said it sought more clarification on the announcement of a cocoa export ban.
Another major U.S. agribusiness company, Archer Daniels Midland Co., said on Monday it was carefully assessing the situation and would "take appropriate action as the situation evolves."
But Ouattara's government sent a second letter to exporters, which was seen by Reuters on Tuesday, complaining that some businesses were still paying taxes to Gbagbo and the funds were being used to "recruit mercenaries."
The United States has backed Ouattara's call and welcomed the move by Cargill to stop cocoa purchases, which usually generate about $1 billion in state revenues per year.
Ouattara's cocoa ban follows a number of economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed on Gbagbo, his supporters and Ivorian institutions cooperating with him.
West African regional body ECOWAS has threatened to oust Gbagbo by force if he refuses to stand down, though some diplomats are worried there may be cracks in what had otherwise been almost unanimous support for Ouattara.
West African leaders will meet U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week.
(Additional reporting by Sarah McFarlane in London, Felix Onuah in Abuja, Loucoumane Coulibaly and David Lewis in Abidjan, Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, and Nicholas Tattersall in Lagos; writing by Richard Valdmanis and David Lewis)
