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Coconut oil prices plunge

G.K. Nair

KOCHI, Sept. 17

COCONUT oil prices plunged to below Rs 3,000-level since Saturday touching Rs 2,975 on Monday for want of buying support.

No upcountry demand forthcoming for the past several weeks while the local demand was met by millers in the rural areas, a local trading source told Business Line . There was a daily sales of 400 tonnes in Kerala but that made little impact on the prices , they said.

In fact, there had not been any trading in the terminal market after August 22, they said. NAFED had brought down the prices of its coconut oil to Rs 2,975 a quintal and "yet there were no takers", they pointed out.

They said copra was sold at Rs 1,950 a quintal as against the minimum support price(MSP) of Rs 3,300 per quintal fixed by the Government. So far, no procurement of copra had taken place during the current fiscal. The Government agencies which procured co pra last season at the MSP Rs 3,250 were finding it difficult to dispose of this stock, they said. The stock of copra had become over six months old and hence lost its quality. Now, they had no other alternative but to mill this stock and push the oil in to the market, the sources said.

Current retail prices of coconut oil and palm oil were identical and this had diminished the chances of any increased absorption of coconut oil by the households in the state for edible purposes, they said. During the Onam season the palm oil prices were slightly higher and that led to a marginal rise in the local consumption.

On the other hand, coconut oil was available at Rs 2,950 a quintal in Tamil Nadu inclusive of all taxes. This situation had in fact blocked the chances of upcountry buyers coming to Kerala, they added.