01/02/2013 (Hindu Business Line) - Groundnut oil rose by Rs 5 for 10 kg on Thursday despite heavy selling in Saurashtra, where it fell by Rs 10. Sunflower expeller oil and cottonseed refined oil declined by Rs 5 and Rs 2 for 10 kg each. Palmolein, soyabean oil, sunflower oil and rapeseed refined oil ruled unchanged despite lack of demand.

Local stockists continued fresh buying after covering yesterday evening tracking firm Malaysian palm oil and domestic futures markets.

Dry weather may pull down soyabean yields in parts of Argentina’s main crop belt, possibly hurting soyabean oil output and turning buyers to cheaper palm oil, which is priced at a discount of more than $300. Domestic soya oil futures also extended gained in line with foreign markets.

In local markets, stockists continued to buy on expectation of improvement in local demand at the start of the new month. They covered about 1,600-1,700 tonnes of palmolein on Thursday after covering more than 2,000 tonnes yesterday. Local refiners kept rates unchanged on a strong rupee. During the day, Liberty sold about 1,000-1,200 tonnes of palmolein at Rs 515-517 and Ruchi sold about 400-500 tonnes at Rs 518 for delivery up to February. Resellers offloaded about 200-250 tonnes of palmolein in at Rs 508-509 and at Rs 512-514.

Towards the end of the day, Liberty was quoting palmolein at Rs 515 for February, super palmolein at Rs 563, soya refined oil at Rs 730 and sunflower refined oil at Rs 800 for February. Ruchi quoted palmolein at Rs 521, soyabean refined oil at Rs 721 and sunflower refined oil at Rs 800 for February. Allana offered palmolein at Rs 516 and super palmolein at Rs 562. On the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange, soyabean refined oil’s February futures rose to Rs 737.45 (Rs 735.50), March to Rs 714.10 (Rs 709.95) and April to Rs 701.70 (Rs 696.35). Malaysia’s crude palm oil’s February contracts settled at MYR2,512 (MYR2,445), March at MYR2,528 (MYR2,480) and April at MYR2,557 (MYR2,510) a tonne.

The Bombay Commodity Exchange spot rates (Rs/10 kg): groundnut oil 1,280 (1,275), soya refined oil 718(718), sunflower exp. ref. 720 (725), sunflower ref. 800 (800), rapeseed ref. oil 807 (807), rapeseed expeller ref. 777(777) cottonseed ref. oil 618 (620) and palmolein 507 (507).

Vikram Global Commodities, Chennai quoted Malaysian super palmolein at Rs 573 for 10 kg.