Palm oil is tropical woody vegetable oil. It is currently the world ’s largest vegetable oil by production, consumption and international trade. It is known as “the world’s three largest vegetable oils” with soybean oil and rapeseed oil and has more than 5,000 years. Edible history. Palm oil is pressed from the palm fruit on the oil palm tree. The pulp and nuts produce palm oil and palm kernel oil, respectively. The traditional concept of palm oil only includes the former. Palm oil can be refined and separated to obtain products with different melting points, which are widely used in the catering industry, food industry, and oleochemical industry. Southeast Asia and Africa are the main palm oil-producing regions, with output accounting for 88% of the world ’s total palm oil production. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nigeria are the top three producers in the world. At present, China has become the world’s largest importer of palm oil, and palm oil consumption is about 6 million tons per year, accounting for 20% of the total market.
Demand for palm oil
Palm oil is an important part of the world oil market, and its proportion in world total oil production exceeds 30%. Oil palm is a crop that blooms and bears in all seasons and has been harvested for many years. Commercial production of oil palm can be maintained for 25 years! Affected by the expansion of the global palm oil planting area and the increase in the area of mature palm oil, global palm oil production continued to increase in 2012 or reached a record high.
At the end of 2012, the domestic palm oil spot market was picking up, mainly because the “two-section” demand started to stimulate terminal traders to speed up their purchases. However, at the same time, the domestic palm oil imports to Hong Kong have accelerated, far exceeding the increase in demand; the cost of palm oil imports has fallen and the long-term expectations are lower.
The main origin of palm oil
Palm oil is also known as palm oil and palm peel oil. The oil extracted from the peel of oil palm fruit is a non-drying oil. Oil palm fruit is native to the west coast of Africa. A large number of Southeast Asian countries began to plant it in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the area and output of oil palm in Southeast Asia had surpassed Africa. In the 1920s, China introduced Hainan Island from Malaysia, and later Taiwan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, and other provinces and regions all planted it, but the yield was not large. Since the 1970s, palm oil production has been the fastest-growing among various vegetable oils and fats. It has become the world’s main edible oil and fat and occupies an important position in the international vegetable oil market. Due to the constraints of natural conditions such as climate, China’s product development has been slow. A large number of imports began in the late 1980s, and imports accounted for more than 15% of the world’s palm oil trade.
Oil palm is the most productive oil-producing plant in the world. In Malaysia, oil palm can currently produce up to about 5 tons of oil per hectare. Oil palm per hectare produces five times more oil than peanuts of the same area and nine times more than soybeans. The average mature palm oil in Malaysia has reached 4.5 tons of palm oil per hectare per year.
Palm oil is a kind of vegetable oil that can partially replace other oils. Soy oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, lard, and tallow can be replaced. Due to the interrelationship between palm oil and various oils and fats, the price of palm oil also fluctuates with the movement of the general price of oils and fats in the world. At the same time, the price of palm oil fluctuates greatly.
Oil palm trees originated in West Africa. Industrial palm oil is red and extracted from palm bark, while palm kernel oil is white and extracted from the inner core. The production process of palm oil and palm kernel oil is complicated. Mainly through the following steps: sterilization, refining, bleaching, deodorization. Finally, 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 demand for palm oil for candle manufacturing and machinery lubricants. Palm oil was first supplied by farmers in West Africa, and in 1848 Dutch colonists brought palm oil cultivation to Java. In 1910, the English colonial Williamson Middleton and the banker Henri May founded Sendama in Malaysia, planting palm trees to produce palm oil. Palm oil is a major competitor to the world’s leading fat and soybean 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, total palm oil and palm kernel oil use has exceeded soybean oil, the world’s leading edible oil.
China is the world’s largest edible oil consumer, with a total annual consumption of more than 25 million tons. The 2013 Central Economic Work Conference put forward a national food security strategy of “mainly based on me, based on the country, ensuring production capacity, moderate imports and supported by science and technology”, which has further aroused public attention to grain and oil products.