By Sébastien Risso

EuropeanVoice.com

29 July, 2010

International demand for palm oil is huge – and growing – but provokes great controversy. Sébastien Risso says the environmental damage caused by extracting palm oil is unsustainable, while Lim Keng Yaik argues that palm oil is one of the surest and most sustainable forms of development available.

Sébastien Risso is the EU forest policy director of Greenpeace:

Palm oil is everywhere – in chocolate, in soap and even in biodiesel. The industry is booming. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), demand will double by 2030 and triple by 2050. That is great news for business, but a disaster for some of the world’s richest forests and the people that depend on them. Images of blackened, moon-like landscapes where there were once pristine forests are a tragedy for all but the companies responsible and the politicians who support them. Read the rest of this entry »

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Business Times

30 July, 2010

PRICES of crude palm oil (CPO) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives ended higher yesterday on the back of steady crude oil price, dealers said.

Concerns on a shortage of supply due to the rainy season and price rise in commodities generally were also among contributing factors to the positive trend, a dealer said.

“The market should remain steady as festival period buying remains strong with demand coming from China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia,” the dealer said.

At close, CPO futures contracts for August 2010 and September 2010 rose RM14 each to close at RM2,585 and RM2,542 a tonne respectively, while October 2010 and November 2010 both were RM19 higher at RM2,514 and RM2,506 a tonne respectively.

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Business Times

30 July, 2010

The Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities is investigating a newspaper report that local independent palm oil millers are facing problems getting good quality fresh fruit bunches (FFB).

The supply and quality of FFB sourced mainly from licensed dealers has been poor, the report had said.

Responding to the report, Deputy Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, Senator Datuk G. Palanivel said a delay in the transportation of the FFB could be one reason.

The FFB crop once harvested, must reach the mills, at best, within 24 hours to ensure it retains its measurement of freshness.

“The problem could be due to the delay in transportation from plantation to processing centres by oil palm dealers of unorganised smallholders,” Palanivel said during a media briefing on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes adopted by plantation companies.

It was also mentioned in the report by a local daily that millers in other categories like the government-backed agencies such as Felda, Felcra and Risda as well as the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) members said to be “the big boys” have better control over the supply chain, derived mainly from their own plantations.

Most independent millers, do not own estates and get supply from unscrupulous dealers who take advantage of the situation by selling FFB which are of lower quality, the report said.

In Malaysia, the quality of palm oil have to comply with standards set by the Palm Oil Refiners Association of Malaysia (PORAM) where the maximum percentage of free fatty acid is five per cent, maximum moisture and impurities is 0.25 per cent and minimum degree of breacheable index (Dobi) value is 2.31. — BERNAMA

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By Stephen Coates (AFP)

Google News

30 July, 2010

JAKARTA — Greenpeace made fresh allegations Thursday that units of Indonesian paper and palm oil giant Sinar Mas are clearing high conservation-value forests including habitats of endangered orangutans.

Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said new investigations showed Sinar Mas subsidiaries logging peat forests and orangutan habitats on Borneo island despite repeated promises to end such practices.

“Our photos provide fresh evidence of Sinar Mas’s continued active clearance of remaining rainforests and deep peatlands,” he told AFP as the environmental group released a report on the issue.

“Contrary to their claims of sustainability, land-clearing is still happening on the ground.”

The allegations are the latest in a string of Greenpeace attacks on Sinar Mas, whose palm oil unit PT SMART has recently suffered the loss of major clients Unilever, Kraft and Nestle over environmental concerns.

“Sinar Mas is the leading palm oil producer in Indonesia. It is their duty to show the way and that’s the reason why we have targeted them. We would be more than happy to stop this campaign,” Maitar said.

In addition to sheltering critically endangered species like orangutans, high conservation-value forests are also rich stores of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Star

30 July, 2010

KOTA KINABALU: As the nation’s third biggest palm oil producer, Sabah must not repeat the mistakes made in its timber industry by ignoring the need to develop downstream activities, Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman said.

Sabah currently produces 5.4 million tonnes of crude palm oil, nearly one third of Malaysia’s annual production of 17.5 million tonnes of the commodity.

The state’s palm oil industry also produces 27 million tonnes of biomass or waste products such as empty fruit bunches, fronds and trunks.

“Biofertilisers from the waste can be used to replace chemical ones and empty fruit bunches can be used to produce paper, briquette and pellets.

“Palm fatty acid distillate can be used to produce bio diesel,” Musa said after launching the Palmex 2010 oil palm industry exhibition here yesterday. He said a similar situation faced the state timber sector several decades ago.

“But today, we can hardly claim to have a downstream timber industry. We were probably in a comfort zone then and before we knew it, we were left behind.

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Flex News

29 July, 2010

Cargill has entered into a supply agreement to provide Unilever’s European operations with 10,000 metric tonnes of segregated refined palm oil, certified by the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

This means that the oil will have been certified as sustainable, having been segregated at every step in the supply chain.  Cargill’s new offering will strengthen its ability to provide sustainable palm oil products to meet customers’ requirements and will complement its existing certified RSPO Mass Balance palm oil offering.

“Our agreement with Unilever is the result of both companies’ strong commitment to supporting responsible supply chains”, said Paul Naar, head of Cargill’s food businesses in Europe.  “As the demand for certified sustainable palm oil continues to grow, we are combining our supply chain expertise and industry knowledge to provide customers with choices to meet their particular requirements. We are very pleased to partner with Unilever and see this as a big step forward in the drive towards palm oil sustainability.”

“Unilever is ahead of plan to achieving 100 percent sustainable palm oil by 2015 with over 35 percent already being RSPO certified this year”, said Marc Engel, Chief Procurement Officer at Unilever. “Today’s announcement marks another important milestone in our journey to 100 percent sustainable palm oil, as Cargill’s physically segregated certified oil will be delivered in our factories and used in our products. We are very pleased that Cargill, as one of our strategic partners, is sharing our vision on sustainable palm oil and enabling this for us.”

Cargill’s offering of fully segregated refined palm oil follows the RSPO certification of the company’s European and Malaysian oil refineries.  PT. Hindoli in Sumatra, Indonesia received its RSPO certification in February 2009 and Cargill is currently working to certify its other palm plantation in Indonesia, Harapan Sawit Lestari. Cargill fully supports the RSPO process to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil throughout the supply chain. The company has set a goal of buying 60 percent of its total crude palm oil from RSPO members by the end of 2010. It is encouraging its third-party suppliers to join RSPO and attain certification and its eventual goal is to have a 100 percent RSPO certified supply chain.

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JAKARTA, July 29 (Reuters) – Malaysian crude palm oil rose 1.1 percent on Thursday on concerns that weather uncertainty on grains crops wordwide would curb global vegetable oil supplies in the medium term.

Asian traders are watching the impact of drought conditions on the European rapeseed crop which may limit oilseed crushing and support vegetable oil markets.

Palm oil gains were also underpinned by concerns that hot weather may stunt soy pod setting in the United States.

“Technically, the market is still in the uptrend. The market gains because of firm soybeans market and from weather uncertainty,” said a trader with a foreign broker in Malaysia. “Demand is also firm, so nothing is change.” Read the rest of this entry »

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By Kristy Inus

KOTA KINABALU, July 29 (Bernama) — Biomass, a green energy sector with an estimated value of RM30 billion in Sabah, has been earmarked as the next major industry to be developed in the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) in Lahad Datu.

POIC Sabah Sdn Bhd’s chief executive officer Dr Pang Teck Wai said a Japanese company had already set up operations in the cluster to pursue biomass activities and the state government was continuously promoting the infrastructure there to attract investors.

POIC Sabah was set up by the state government to spearhead palm oil downstream processing and the company is placed under the supervision of the State Industrial Development Ministry.

“This is what we called the infant stage, so now the state government is trying to move towards opening this frontier for investment opportunities,” Pang told reporters after the opening of Malaysia’s largest palm oil technology expo, Palmex 2010, here Thursday.
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