Palm oil

Palm oil is a tropical woody vegetable oil. It is currently the world’s largest variety of vegetable oil in terms of production, consumption and international trade. It is called the “three major vegetable oils in the world” together with soybean oil and rapeseed oil. It has more than 5,000 Years of eating history.

Palm oil is squeezed from the palm fruit on the oil palm tree. The pulp and kernel produce palm oil and palm kernel oil respectively. The traditional concept of palm oil only includes the former. After refining and fractionating palm oil, products with different melting points can be obtained, which have a wide range of uses in the catering industry, the food industry and the oleochemical industry. Southeast Asia and Africa, as the main palm oil producing areas, account for 88% of the world's total palm oil production. Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria are the world's top three producing countries. At present, China has become a major palm oil importer in the world, with palm oil consumption of about 6 million tons per year, accounting for 20% of the total market.

Demand situation

Palm oil is an important part of the world's oil and fat market, and it accounts for more than 30% of the world's total oil production. Oil palm is a crop that blooms and bears fruit in all seasons and has long-term harvests. Commercial production of oil palm can be maintained for 25 years!

Affected by factors such as the expansion of global palm oil planting area and the increase in mature palm oil area, global palm oil production continued to increase in 2012, or hit a record high.

At the end of 2012, the domestic palm oil spot market rebounded, mainly because the "two festivals" demand started to stimulate terminal traders to accelerate purchases. But at the same time, domestic palm oil imports to Hong Kong have accelerated, far exceeding the increase in demand; palm oil import costs have fallen, and long-term expectations are lower.

Main origin

Palm oil, also known as palm oil and palm peel oil, is a non-drying oil derived from the peel of the oil palm fruit. Oil palm fruit is native to the west coast of Africa. In the 1970s, Southeast Asian countries began to plant them in large quantities. By the 1980s, the area and output of oil palm in Southeast Asia had exceeded that of Africa. In the 1920s, my country introduced Hainan Island from Malaysia. Later, Taiwan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and other provinces and regions have planted them, but the output is not large. Since the 1970s, palm oil production has been growing rapidly among various vegetable oils, and has become the main edible oil in the world today, occupying an important position in the international vegetable oil market. Due to the constraints of climate and other natural conditions, my country's production development has been slow. In the late 1980s, it began to import a large amount, and the import volume accounted for more than 15% of the world's palm oil trade volume.

Oil palm seed

Oil palm is an oil-producing plant with higher production efficiency in the world. In Malaysia, oil palm can produce about 5 tons of oil per hectare. The oil produced per hectare of oil palm is five times higher than that of peanuts in the same area and nine times higher than that of soybeans. The average Malaysian oil palm that has reached maturity has an average annual yield of 4.5 tons of crude palm oil per hectare.

Palm oil is a kind of vegetable oil, which can partially replace other fats, such as soybean oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, lard and tallow. Due to the interrelationship between palm oil and various oils, the price of palm oil fluctuates with the price of general oils in the world. At the same time, the price of palm oil fluctuates greatly.

Oil palm trees originated from West Africa earlier. Industrial palm oil is red and is extracted from palm bark, while palm kernel oil is white and is extracted from the inner core. The production process of palm oil and palm kernel oil is complex. Mainly go through the following processes: sterilization, refining, bleaching, and deodorization.

Then, we got palm oil and palm kernel oil before sending it to storage.

The planting of palm trees began in the early 19th century, when the British Industrial Revolution created a demand for palm oil for candle manufacturing and mechanical lubricants.

At first palm oil was supplied by farmers in West Africa, and then in 1848 Dutch colonists brought palm oil cultivation to Java. In 1910, English colonizer Williamson Middleton and banker Henry Mei founded Sime Darby in Malaysia to plant palm trees to produce palm oil.

Palm oil is the world's main competitor of soybean oil, the world's leading fat and oil. Other competitors include rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, cottonseed oil, palm kernel oil and olive oil. However, for the first time since 2004, the total consumption of palm oil and palm kernel oil has surpassed that of soybean oil, the world's main edible oil.

China is a major country in the world's consumption of edible oil, with a total consumption of more than 25 million tons of edible oil each year. In 2013, the Central Economic Work Conference put forward the national food security strategy of "self-centered, based on domestic, ensured production capacity, moderate imports, supported by science and technology", which further aroused social attention to grain and oil products.