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When the nickel smelters started springing up in Morowali, a global hub for nickel ore mining, on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island in around 2013, the local health clinic saw a sharp increase in the number of the town residents with respiratory infections in need of medical treatment. Notwithstanding this trend, Indonesian government policy aims to triple the number of nickel smelters nationwide between 2020-21. Also palm oil production is important to the Southeast Asian country’s economy, as Indonesia is the world’s biggest producer and consumer of the commodity, providing about half of the world’s supply. In 2016, Indonesia produced over 34.5 million tons of palm oil, and exported nearly 73% of it. Now Indonesia’s ban on nickel ore exports and the EU’s tariffs on palm oil imports have prompted both sides to sue each other in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures closed higher on Tuesday, as supply concerns due to lower output expectations boosted prices, while higher biofuel mandates in 2020 aided sentiment.

A private company’s concession to grow oil palms in Krabi has come to an end. So local authorities have opened it to locals as a “Community forest”. The local Forest Resource Management officials have launched a reclamation project at the site in Ban Thung Preu, Khao Phanom.

Incredibly, Nigeria spends a whopping $500 million to import palm oil annually to meet local demand. This is a big irony, as a full harvest of the country’s potential in this resource will reverse this trend, and channel the saved funds to the development of priority areas. The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, wants this achieved with the bank’s interventionist policy in this sub-sector of the economy. The irrational dependence on petro-dollars resulted in the country abandoning palm oil production in commercial quantity, a commodity it was the leading global producer in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The Energy Ministry has decided to postpone the effective date for cutting retail prices for biodiesel B10 and gasohol E20 by one baht per litre from Wednesday to Thursday because the ministry's buildings caught fire on Wednesday, rendering officials unable to conduct a meeting.

KRIBI, Cameroon — Alarm flashed through Cameroon’s conservation community in mid-September, when images of untidy rows of black polythene bags in a freshly bulldozed gash in the rainforest made the rounds of social media. It was soon confirmed that the pictures came from a forest concession adjacent to Campo Ma’an National Park, in the south of the country. A little-known company, Camvert, intends to convert 60,000 hectares (148,000 acres) of forest here into oil palm plantations.

Jakarta INDONESIA on Monday launched biodiesel containing 30 per cent palm-based fuel, the highest mandatory mix in the world, in a bid to slash its fuel import bill and boost domestic palm oil consumption.

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 24): IOI Corp Bhd said the group is now 100% Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO)-certified across its 84 estates and 14 mills in the country after the group's final estate obtained its certification on Nov 28.

GEORGE TOWN: Local scientists have found a “natural mechanism” to cut down the use of pesticides in oil palm plantations.

Singapore — Analysts and traders fixated on the elevated crude palm oil stockpile at the beginning of 2019 are left cheering as CPO stocks fell across Malaysia and Indonesia while prices rallied to MR 2,684/mt (US $648/mt) December 4 against MR 2,065/mt at the beginning of the year.

What started as a spat with the European Union over Indonesian palm oil has escalated into a far broader trade dispute with imported European spirits and now dairy products caught in the crossfire.

[KUALA LUMPUR] Malaysian palm oil futures fell for a second straight session on Tuesday in thin pre-holiday trade, tracking weaker rival oils, although supply concerns and higher biofuel mandates capped the losses.