In his presentation Thomas Mielke will highlight latest OIL WORLD forecasts of supply & demand not only of palm and lauric oils but also for the competing soybean oil, rapeseed oil and other oils & fats worldwide. The global dependence on palm oil has increased significantly during the past several years owing to insufficient production of soya oil and other oils & fats. In the 10 years until Oct/Sept 2012/13 world production of palm oil doubled to almost 56 Mn T. In Oct/Sept 2012/13 palm oil had to fill the gap created by the shortfall in world production of all the other 16 oils & fats, which showed a combined decline by two million tonnes from a year earlier. As a result, world exports of palm oil are likely to reach a record 44 Mn T in Oct/Sept 2012/13, while exports of palmkernel oil are going to increase to 3.5 Mn T, a combined 4 Mn T more than a year earlier. Both oils will thus account for as much as 62% of world exports of all 17 oils & fats compared with 53% ten years ago.

Stocks of palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia declined substantially by at least a combined 2.0 Mn T from the peak registered in December 2012. Therefore, the ampleness of supplies has disappeared for the time being, allowing palm oil prices to recover from their lows.

Thomas Mielke will also highlight the prospective pronounced increase in world production and export supplies of soybean oil in the 2013/14 season and will discuss to what extent this will affect demand for and prices of palm oil in the months ahead.