Bs Reporter / Chennai/ Hyderabad July 29, 2008

Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Monday launched the sale of palm oil at a subsidised rate of Rs 45 a litre in Andhra Pradesh through the public distribution system.

Though a nationwide scheme, 23 state have agreed to sell palm oil at reduced prices.

Pawar said the government was concerned about the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities globally, particularly in India, and the move was an attempt to absorb the price shocks to an extent. Palm oil is available in the market for about Rs 65 a litre. The Centre would extend a subsidy of about Rs 1,500 crore for making the edible oil available through the fair price shops.

The government has already made a provision of Rs 25,000 crore for the Rashtriya Krishi Vignan Yojana and another Rs 5,000 crore…

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PALM OIL PRICES ON BURSA MALAYSIA DERIVATIVES BHD
Monday, July 28, 2008
Source from The Star

The Crude Palm Oil Futures Closing : Friday, 25 July 2008

(Prices are in RM/tonne)

MONTH

OPEN

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The Star

Monday - July 28, 2008

by G. M. Teoh

Long liquidation, hedge selling pushed prices to 7½-month low last week

CRUDE PALM OIL

Crude palm oil (CPO) futures on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives tumbled on aggressive long liquidation and commercial hedge-selling pressure and hit a 7½-month low before recovering slightly to close Friday with heavy losses.

Sharp losses in the Chicago Board of Trade soyoil futures, declining crude oil prices, good US crop weather and the Argentine government’s decision to withdraw a hike in soybean export taxes contributed to the broad-based sell-off.

Sharply higher exports in the first 25 days of July had limited positive impact on trading. Last week, Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) estimated exports of Malaysia’s palm oil for the first 25 days of July were sharply higher by 20% at 1.11 million tonnes against 926,345 tonnes a month earlier.

The…

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Business Times

Monday - July 28, 2008

by W.Q. Mun

OBSERVATIONS: Swept down by a huge and fast-flowing torrent of sell orders, the Kuala Lumpur CPO futures market crashed through the RM3,170 a tonne long-term support level on its way down the price chart, extending the previous week’s price slide despite news of the latest - and much-improved - export estimates for palm oil.

The CPO futures market’s actively-traded October 2008 contract dived straight to an intra-week low of RM3,027 before recovering some ground on short-covering and profit-taking to settle last Friday at RM3,070 a tonne, down RM322 or 9.49 per cent over the week.

As in the previous week the overwhelming number of sellers - and huge sell orders - was evidenced by a notable bulge in the total interest position to 56,938 open contracts from the previous week’s 53,396 open contracts.

Crude oil…

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July 28, 2008

By YVONNE TAN

CAROTECH Bhd is expecting biodiesel production to pick up amid rising production capacity and softer crude palm oil (CPO) prices.

The company’s operations has received a much-needed boost, given that CPO prices have tapered off since hitting a record RM4,486 a tonne in early March.

“At Carotech, we have always been producing biodiesel as it is a by-product from our process of extracting phytonutrients.

“Therefore, we expect our production to pick up further following rising capacity and lower CPO prices,” managing director David Ho told StarBiz in an interview.

Carotech has only one core business – the extraction of phytonutrients – vitamin E and carotene from CPO, with methyl ester (or biodiesel) and glycerine as co-products.

CPO, which is the main raw material, makes up about 70% of the company’s total production cost.

Lower CPO prices are good…

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The Star

Monday - July 28, 2008

by Yvonne Tan

Carotech Bhd was set up in 1992 by managing director David Ho to develop phyto-pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products.

The company was listed on the Mesdaq market on April 15, 2005.

Ho’s research on palm oil-based phytonutrients, which began in 1992, resulted in a commercially viable extracting process that Carotech proceeded to patent.

The firm’s first plant, said to be the first and biggest globally, was then set up to produce the products in 1995.

Carotech’s core business essentially involves the manufacture of phytonutrients from palm oil, utilising specialised high vacuum-low temperature distillation technology.

Europe is said to be the company’s largest market, contributing more than 70% of sales, with the rest of its business coming from primary markets including the US, Japan and Australia.

While recent record crude palm oil prices have dampened sentiment on the stock, which…

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The Star

Sunday - July 27, 2008

Miri

The Government will take urgent measures to counter the drop of international crude palm oil prices.

Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said steps would be taken to ensure the decline in prices do not become a long-term trend.

Chin said the Government would lower the current stock of crude palm oil in Malaysia by exporting crude palm oil to countries like India, Pakistan, China and the Middle East instead of exporting refined palm oil and increasing export for the coming winter months to western countries where it could be used as bio-fuel.

Other measures include increasing usage of crude palm oil for bio-fuel production in Malaysia, encouraging local power producers to use crude palm oil as raw material to produce energy and having more industries and factories…

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By Thomas Kutty Abraham

July 26 (Bloomberg) — PEC Ltd., a state-run Indian trading company, called for bids to import 12,000 metric tons of palm oil to sell to the nation’s poor at below market prices.

PEC is seeking refined bleached and deodorized palm oil for delivery between September and October at Chennai, Tuticorin, Paradip, Mangalore or Kandla ports. Suppliers have until 11:30 a.m. on July 30 to submit offers, according to PEC Web site.

India, the biggest buyer of vegetable oil after China, will sell 1 million tons of imported edible oil through so-called ration shops at subsidized rates in year to March 31, 2009, the food ministry said last month.

India buys palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, the biggest producers, and soybean oil from Argentina and Brazil.

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KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Malaysia will put in place a series of measures to stabilise plummeting global palm oil prices including selling off crude stocks, a report said Sunday.

Peter Chin, minister of plantation industries and commodities, told the Sunday Star newspaper the government wanted to make sure that the almost 25-percent drop in prices in recent months did not become a long-term trend.

“The ministry expects palm oil to contribute up to 60 billion ringgit (19 billion dollars) in revenue to the country’s coffers this year, but the substantial drop in the global price may upset this target,” he said.

“We are worried this may be the start of a further decline in the price of palm oil and we will take counter-measures to maintain a good price,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

In the past week, palm oil prices fell to…

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MIRI, July 26 (Bernama) — Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui will meet his Indonesian Agriculture Minister Dr Anton Apriyantono in Jakarta next week to discuss measures to be taken concerning the current downward trend of palm oil prices.

Speaking to reporters here Saturday, Chin said the meeting would be significant for both countries as they commanded over 85 percent of the world’s palm oil production.

“Malaysia and Indonesia as the producing countries (for palm oil) view this trend with anxiety,” he said, adding that all factors that led to the downward trend of the commodity would be analysed at the meeting.

Chin said the price of palm oil had closed at RM3,095 per tonne yesterday and this was way below the average price of RM3,500 per tonne over the last four years.

He said among the factors that…

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