IPs Happened: Copra
pp. 21-152 · Read in the full issue
After Being Too High For Too Long
IPs Happened: Copra Prices Level Out
It is always gratifying to fly a kite and find that it does as predicted; however, when PIM said last month, that copra would probably level out in the next six months, it was over-optimistic on one point: Copra prices have showed them selves ready to level out in a lot less than six months and during July fell by another £Stg.lo per ton.
VERAGE price for Philippines copra. c.i.f. London, during June was £Stg.9l, a fall of £Stg.B/15/- . r the previous month; average July was £Stg.Bl/10/- c.i.f. Lon i In a year, for a South Pacific Station producing 3,000 tons per aum, that would mean a drop in Beamings of £5tg.5,400.
Phis slump was in line with the irseilles price fall, June-July \M, July, page 167), and if the jnch copra market can be re ■ded as a preview of what will open elsewhere (and sometimes the past it has been) planters it be comforted by the fact that er the price dropped to 106,000 t. fcs at beginning of July, it :tuated very little for the rest the month.
Ixperts who make a speciality of ilysing the copra situation are ling it as difficult to pin-point reason for this sudden fall as y were previously to explain irely the continually rising prices.
"Interchangeability 77 Again
I number of factors are probably olved—not the least of which is
I bug-bear “interchangeability”:
5 long run of high copra prices f encouraged manufacturers to .nge formulas in order to use ;matives to coconut oil. Another tor was the move in the United .tes for the disposal of stock id coconut oil and though it (ears now that this will be done r a period, it no doubt had its fit on the market, he overriding reason for the fall, course, is that copra and coconut prices have been maintained at unhealthy high level for too long, I market reaction of this sort • bound to occur sooner or later. )se in the trade are not dis hed; to the contrary, although no i wants to see copra fall much er. The world copra market will more than ordinarily interesting the next few weeks, he Bank Line’s Beaverbank, ich spent 21 weeks on a Fanning md reef in July, had to jettison ut 2,000 tons of coconut oil into
the sea (the oil had been taken on in Suva in June) and although seme copra was unloaded into another ship it is believed that about 2,000 tons were also jettisoned. In early August, Beaverbank was in Honolulu, presumably for repairs. (A Honolulu tug went to her assist ance) .
There was no immediate reaction to this loss of coconut oil and copra —although it was probably too early, at the end of July, to judge the situation completely.
(Continued on page 150)
During early August producing territories in the Pacific were all adjusting local prices. In Papua-New Guinea the Copra Marketing Board will base its final July pries on £Stg.Bl/10/-, the average Philippines price for July c.i.f. London or Con tinental port.
All Round Price Adjustments
Prices quoted by the local copra mill in Suva on August 3 were; £F64 15/- for HAD; £F63/7/6 for FMI; and £F62 for FM2.
Prices being paid in the Solomons by the local Copra Board, in August, were £A74 per ton Ist grade; £A72, 2nd grade; £A6B, 3rd grade.
In Papua-New Guinea, a number of new factors enter into Board’s calculations consequent to the in troduction of income taxation in that Territory and the freeing of copra from Export Taxation.
Presumably, the Board’s delibera tions on the new price took place before copra price subsided with such a wallop, because, although during the period of boom prices, PNGCMB tentative price has been exceedingly conservative (£ASS, £AS4 and £AS3/7/6 per ton for the three grades), now the Board appears to have gone to the other extreme and has fixed the tentative price, July- December, 1959, at £A72/10/- per ton
for Hot Air; £A7I per ton for FMS; and £A7O per ton for Smoke, de livered main ports.
In his monthly bulletin to planters, Mr. lan McDonald, Chairman of the CMB, said that perhaps this price was “optimistic” and continuance depended on whether the London market held firm or deteriorated further.