Oil palm price stable at K2,396

By DALE LUMA
OIL palm prices have been good this month, sitting around US$700 (K2,396.51) per metric tonne CIF (cost, insurance and freight) Rotterdam mark, according to the New Britain Palm Oil Ltd.
Country manager Robert Nilkare told The National that prices were expected to remain stable over the next month or so although it was hard to predict.
“Generally for this year, they (oil palm prices) have been relatively good and we would like to see it continue to go up,” Nilkare said.
He said it was hard to make a forecast because of the impact of the Covid-19. “It is very difficult to predict what’s going to happen towards the end of this year at this stage.”
Nilkare said the drop in oil prices during March and April was because of the pandemic which not only impacted the global economy and consumer spending on food but also the demand for fuel and palm oil which the United States used for biodiesel.
“Palm oil is a food ingredient in a lot of products around the world. Once you get economies tightening up in terms of imports and exports, consumer spending decreases with people prioritising on what’s important.
“That’s a factor in terms consumption and use of palm oil products or any vegetable oil products.
“We have come out of a terrible situation where pricing in the last couple of years hasn’t been favorable and it’s slowly picking up. So we are hoping that towards the end of the year, it sort of gets back to a reasonable level.”
He said the Covid-19 situation had not affected the company too badly as good management had resulted in harvesting and processing activities continuing uninterrupted while adjusting to the “new normal”.