Traders angry over latest RI CPO twist

Traders angry over latest RI CPO twist

LONDON (Reuters): Crude palm oil drifted lower at the opening
of the European vegetable oil market yesterday but participation
was thin ahead of this evenings trade dinner in Rotterdam.

Traders expressed anger at the latest twist in the Indonesian
palm oil export ban saga.

On Thursday the Indonesian Forestry and Plantations Minister
Sumahadi said that Bulog would distribute olein to the local
market and that 14 state-run plantations would supply their crude
palm oil to the designated processors which in turn would sell
their olein to Bulog.

European traders at first saw this as a sensible move to
control local prices and were under the impression that the
surplus oil from the plantations would be available for export.

However reports coming from Indonesia yesterday morning
suggest that this will not be the case.

Indonesian traders reported that many of their contracts have
been canceled and that they were unable to meet their shipment
contracts as the plantations had been told not to deal with
outsiders.

"At first we thought the Indonesian government was going to
play by the rules, but now they have moved the goal post yet
again, they may as well have not lifted the ban at all," said
one.

"I have no comment to make now," said another, "this is a
matter for the IMF."

Under the terms of the agreement between the IMF and the
Indonesian government, Bulog was to lose its monopoly of all
commodities, expect rice.

Crude palm oil opened $5 down to unchanged after May traded at
$710 and $705 a ton cif Europe.

Coconut oil started the day $5 to $10 up while soft oils were
unchanged to one guilder higher.