• Bloomberg reported that Indonesia will maintain the ceiling prices of cooking oil sold in the local markets to prevent inflation surges during the Ramadan and Eid Al Fitri festive season. The government will not raise the ceiling prices for cooking oil until after Eid Al Fitri. The government will also keep the domestic market obligation programme’s volume target at 300,000 tonnes in March and April as supply is adequate.

• According to Bloomberg also, the Indonesian government is mulling raising replanting assistance for palm oil farmers to IDR60mil (US$3,800) per hectare from the current IDR30mil (US$1,900). The government will simplify rules to speed up the replanting programme. The Indonesian government targets to replant about 180,000ha of ageing oil palm trees annually.

• Reuters quoted AgRural as saying that Brazil’s soybean harvest for 2023/2024F reached 48% of planted areas as at 2 weeks ago, up 8%-points from the previous week. The figure was also above last year’s level of 43%. AgRural said that rains in Rio Grande do Sul and less intense showers in the Matopiba region were the highlights of the week.

• According to Reuters also, India is expected to buy larger volumes of soyoil in 2024F while purchases of palm oil are likely to decline. Chief executive of Sunvin Group, Sandeep Bajoria said that India’s soyoil imports will rise to 4.3mil tonnes in 2023/2024F from 3.5mil tonnes in 2022/2023. Palm oil imports will be lower at 9.2mil tonnes in 2023/2024F compared with 10mil tonnes in 2022/2023. Negative refining margins in palm oil vs. positive margins in soyoil have prompted a switch from palm oil to soyoil in recent weeks.

• Bloomberg reported that China snapped up more than 20 cargoes of feed grains in the international market in the past 2 weeks as it took advantage of the decline in prices to their lowest levels in more than 3 years. The country secured shipments of corn, sorghum and barley from suppliers including Ukraine and USA. The purchases amounted to over 1.2mil tonnes of grains on the basis of each cargo carrying 60,000 tonnes. The shipments included at least 10 cargoes of Ukrainian corn, at least 5 cargoes of US sorghum and 6 multi-origin barley shipments.

Source: AmInvest Research - 11 Mar 2024