24/02/2011 (Bangkok Post) - Consumers are feeling slightly less worried about the palm oil shortage after some leading retailers have begun allowing them to buy more than one bottle of cooking oil per visit.

Retailers also appear more confident that new supplies will reach their stores soon after Commerce Ministry allowed imports of another 30,000 tones of crude palm olein.

As well, Mrs Porntiva said that of the 5.2 million blue-capped bottles of cooking oil to be offered for sale at low prices, half had been produced and the rest would be ready this week.

Next week, refiners can make palm oil in pink-capped bottles for distribution to consumers. The ministry has told retailers to sell palm oil in unlimited quantities but some may have their own policy to ensure wide distribution.

Phattaraphorn Phenpraphat, the vice-president for marketing and public relations of Central Food Retail Co, said the supply of cooking palm oil would improve at all of the company's Tops supermarkets in the next week. From today, bottled oil will be displayed on all store shelves.

In the past few weeks, palm oil disappeared from Tops because the Commerce Ministry ordered producers to distribute goods directly to its own distribution points.

"We have already allowed shoppers to buy two bottles of cooking oil per family from yesterday to help meet their strong demand during the shortage," she said.

Kitipong Thunmchutapong, general manager at The Mall Group, said it would no longer limit purchases to ai its supermarkets to one bottle per family.

"During the past few weeks, we had an inventory of cooking palm oil enough for one month of sales, but it was sold out within two weeks," he said.

Thai Edible Oil Co, the producer of King brand rice bran oil, is supplying all retail stores as usual.

"We are running at a full capacity right now and have never suspended any product supply to retailers during the past month," said a spokeswoman. "But our oil supply is so small when compared to soybean and palm oil.

"Whenever our bottles of rice bran oil are put on retail shelves, they are all taken by consumers right away. That's why our products are so scarce and off the shelves in a short period."

Normally, palm oil represents 70% of the cooking oil market for household consumption, soybean oil 20% and rice bran oil and others 10%. Last year, total household cooking oil consumption was around 900,000 tonnes.

The company said King rice bran oil prices had not changed from 54 baht per one-litre bottle for regular oil and 105-120 baht for premium oil, depending on retail promotions at each time.

In a related development, Singapore-based Wilmar Trading Pte has won the bid to supply a new lot of 30,000 tonnes of crude palm olein to Thailand.

The oil is expected to reach Thai ports within five top seven days to refine into cooking palm oil to be sold at the capped price of 47 baht a litre.

The Public Warehouse Organisation yesterday opened bids, a day after the Oil Palm Policy Committee decided it would be necessary to import more crude oil since the first shipment of 30,000 tonnes had failed to put a dent in the domestic shortage.

The bid was attended by seven other suppliers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong and was monitored by the Department of Special Investigation.

Wilmar quoted a price of US$1,270 a tonne but reduced it to $1,258 after negotiation, said According to Public Warehouse Organisation director-general Anukul Tamprasert, According Anukul Tamprasert, the director-general of the Public Warehouse Organisation.

The final price means the government needs to provide a subsidy of 3.20 baht a litre to producers in order to keep the retail price at 47 baht a litre, a lower rate than the earlier projection of five baht a litre.