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Coconut oil falls Rs 200/qtl

G.K. Nair

KOCHI, Sept. 18

COCONUT oil prices declined by Rs 200 a quintal on Monday from that of September 8 on oversupply and low demand.

On Monday, the prices were quoted at Rs 2,875 per quintal as against Rs 3,075 on September 8. Copra prices also dropped to Rs 1,990 from Rs 2,115 per quintal. Local as well as upcountry demand was virtually nil while there was an oversupply, Mr N Anantha n, Secretary, Cochin Oil Merchants' Association (COMA), told Business Line on Monday.

According to him, the National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation Ltd has unloaded some of its stocks of copra in the upcountry market which has led to lack of demand from there. On the other hand, the traders, who had stocked coconut oil for the Onam festival season, have started clearing their stocks which iss also responsible for the depression of the market.

Nafed, which had procured around 85,000 tonnes of copra of which 55,000 tonnes were from Kerala, was expected to take a decision on handing over the stocks for milling this week. Once the stocks were milled, the availability of coconut oil in the market would go up substantially pushing the prices further down, Mr Ananthan said.

As the Onam season was over the local demand was also expected to fall in the coming weeks. Compared to the previous year, the local demand was less than 50 per cent this year, he said.