Indonesia's palm oil exports fell by a massive 34 percent in July
26-Sep-2024 01:26 PM
Jakarta. Torrential rains have caused severe floods in some parts of Indonesia, the world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil, which is hindering the transportation and crushing of oil palm.
Meanwhile, the data released by Gapki, the apex body of Indonesian palm oil industry and trade sector, for the month of July shows that there was a spectacular export of 33.85 lakh tonnes of palm oil products in June, which fell to 22.41 lakh tonnes in July with a massive 33.8 percent decline.
Palm oil production also fell by 2.1 percent from 40.45 lakh tonnes to 39.61 lakh tonnes during this period and its outstanding surplus stock fell by 10.8 percent from 28.18 lakh tonnes to 25.13 lakh tonnes.
The main reason for the reduction in outstanding stock despite a sharp decline in exports is that the consumption of palm oil in Indonesia's domestic sector has increased significantly.
According to the Gapki report, during the first seven months of the current year i.e. from January to July 2024, Indonesia produced 301.46 lakh tonnes of palm oil,
which included the production of 275.25 lakh tonnes of crude palm oil (CPO) and 26.21 lakh tonnes of crude palm kernel oil (CPKO). At the beginning of the current year, there was a previous outstanding stock of 31.46 lakh tonnes of palm oil products.
During July, the total consumption of palm oil in Indonesia's domestic sector increased from 19.40 lakh tonnes to 20.30 lakh tonnes as compared to June.
Under this, consumption for direct food purpose fell from 8.50 lakh tons to 8.10 lakh tons and for oleochemical manufacturing from 19.20 lakh tons to 18.50 lakh tons but for production of biodiesel this consumption increased from 8.98 lakh tons to 10.35 lakh tons.
It is noteworthy that maximum import of crude palm oil and RBD palmolein in India is done from Indonesia.
Recently the Indonesian government has reduced the rate of levy on export of palm oil to increase the competitive ability of its products in the global market.