India Edible Oil Rises On Global Market, Bullish Price Cues

MUMBAI (Dow Jones)--Indian edible oil prices rose during the week ended Friday, tracking uptrend in overseas edible oil prices, and lower area under the winter-sown domestic oilseed crop, traders said.

The benchmark March Malaysian crude palm oil futures contract rose to a six month high of MYR2,620 per ton during the week on speculative buying and bullish price forecast.

Dorab Mistry, London-based vegetable oil analyst, expects crude palm oil futures to rise to MYR2,800-MYR3,000 per ton by end of March 2010.

Indian prices mostly track overseas markets as the country imports nearly half of its annual vegetable oil needs of 15 million metric tons.

Meanwhile, summer-sown oilseeds output has been lower and the expectations are that output of winter-sown oilseed crops like rapeseed and groundnut will also fall, said Govindbhai Patel, managing partner of Dipak Enterprises and a leading expert on vegetable oils.

Area under rapeseed, the main oilseed grown in winter, fell to 6.26 million hectares as of Dec. 17 from 6.40 million hectares a year earlier.

Sunflower plantings fell to 700,000 hectares from 943,000 hectares, while groundnut area declined to 363,000 hectares from 369,000 hectares a year ago.

However, India's vegetable oil imports in the marketing year that began Nov. 1 is likely to be 8.6 million to 9 million metric tons, Patel said.

The country's vegetable-oil imports in 2008-09 hit a record high 8.66 million tons.

Refined, bleached and deodorized palm olein prices rose to INR39,000/ton from INR38,600/ton last week, while crude palm oil rose to INR35,200/ton from INR35,000/ton last week.

However, refined soyoil was quoted at INR47,000 a ton, down from INR47,500/ton a week ago.

-By Swansy Afonso, Dow Jones Newswires; 91-22-61456106; swansy.afonso@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-18-09 0839ET
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