Products Of The South Seas

Further Weakening of Copra Prices

THE price of copra during the month has further weakened. On January 2, it dropped as low as £14 per ton for South Sea sun dried, in London. Last week it showed a slight recovery and prices were quoted around £14/7/6.

Comments on the copra situation by the well-known London house of Messrs. Faure, Blattman and Co. are

interesting.

This firm on November 14 stated that during the next two months it was their opinion that prices would range between 10/- above and 10/- below the value at that date, which was £15/15/-.

The review continued: “Supplies of copra this year show a decided fallingoff compared with last year, but as other oils and oil seeds are in ample supply copra has riot been able to resist the downward movement. The prospects for the next six weeks are that supplies will be surplus to require ments, but the position is already re fleeted in to-day’s prices.

“There will be a surplus quantity of whale oil next year, which will have -a very depressing effect on the prices of other commodities. Therefore, al though present prices are at such a low level, we fail to see any upward lift for some considerable time to come, but although it is quite possible a further drop might be seen, there is, as only to be expected at these low levels, more resistance to each drop.”

The depressing effect of whale oil on The copra market is still being felt. The rapid development of the whaling in dustry during the last decade is shown in a new volume entitled, “Interna

tional Whaling Statistics.” In this it is stated that the total number of whales caught by all expeditions has nearly trebled since 1919-20, while the yield of oil (in barrels) has increased more than four-fold. In 1919-20 the whales caught totalled 11,389, from which 407,327 barrels of oil were pro duced, whereas in 1928-29 the whales captured totalled 27,566 and the pro duction of oil 1,867,449 barrels.

It was recently stated in The Lon don Financial Times that an official report on the German oil and mar garine industry stressed the dominating influence of Unilever in Germany.

Hamburg, it was reported, was no lon ger so important in the oil trade, while the importance of London, Liverpool and Amsterdam had advanced. The Dutch-English Margarine Combine controlled 46 per cent, of the German oil industry. Margarine production in Germany was now over 480,000 tons, of which 77 per cent, was produced by Unilever. The report stated that a monopoly was unlikely in the oil in dustry, but the margarine industry in Germany was virtually about to be monopolised.

Messrs. Browne and Joske Ltd., of Suva, in their summary of the copra situation during last month, pointed out that copra at £16 per ton meant coconut oil at £24, as compared with the purchase by the Unilever interests of the whale oil catch at £25. The firm did not think that the market could travel either way to any great distance off the parity of the whale oil purchase price.