News

October 24, 2008

Mr Gloom Forecasts Misery For The Palm Oil Market

Sally White

Dorab Mistry is sounding very gloomy. That is really bad news for palm oil prices. To put non-specialists into the picture, he is the established guru of the palm oil markets, sitting in his base at Indian group Godrej International’s trading office in London. While confident that the use of palm oil will continue to widen, he is in no doubt that in the short term supply is going to overwhelm demand.

Other palm oil specialists see the same picture. James Fry, head of London-based LMC International, told a conference in Kuala Lumpur this week that a slowdown in Malaysian crude palm oil output was unlikely to be fast enough to lift prices, which could fall by another 30 per cent, While the Malaysian government was supposed to be debating this contentious issue, a number of ministers found their diaries were full!!

Mistry had a good go at speculators still trying to push prices...