Red China’s

Copra Looks Safe And What Of Red China’s Influence?

From Judy Tudor, in London Trading in vegetable oils was >w in the first part of January

lile buyers waited to see what

rt of flavour the first release

US stockpiled coconut oil

Duld give to the market. r is expected that something like 6,000 tons of this oil will be re leased every six weeks for the xt 18 months. Tenders for the st lot closed on January 6, and >er in the month it was known at the four successful tenderers ;re the US establishments of octor and Gamble, Lever Bros., F. Drew and the Pacific Vegetable 1 Co.

The price accepted has been ited as “between 174 to 184 US uts per pound,” which according my calculations (which aren’t cessarily all that accurate, as I i far away from regular checking ints), works out at about £Stg.l32 r ton. [f correct, that should not cause ,y jolt to the market as it is proximately the same price as at current for Straits crude, ci.f., >rth European ports All this is surprising, in a way, some of this stockpiled oil must all of 10 years old, although it is own that throughout the stock ing period oil has been periodic y withdrawn and replenished. It n be argued, perhaps, that the od price tendered for this oil is a inter to a continuing firm market r copra.

A Rash Prophet We can hope so, although it would a rash prophet who nailed his Lours to the mast about this one. hat is abundantly clear, however, that although copra price may it remain forever up in the high rels it has maintained over the st 15 months, as far into the ture as one can see, there is a arket, not only for all the copra ing produced today, but for a eatly increased production.

One new factor that has not gun to make its presence felt yet, ,t which is being watched with nsiderable interest by the experts, Red China. All the signs are

there that this country will eventually become a big user of copra, particularly for the production of soap The outlook for copra today is so vastly different from what it was in the 1930’5, we might be dealing with an entirely different commodity.

The thing that keeps the United Kingdom a veritable preserve for South Pacific Islands copra producers, is the British duty of 10 per cent, on foreign copra, and 15 per cent, on foreign oil. that ca from y although milled in a Commonwealth country, is held to be foreign because it is produced very largely from “smuggled” Indonesian copra,

These duties certainly mean that the South Seas has the lion’s share of the UK market; but as London is the centre of the copra world, where such organisations as Unilever buy for their Continental mills and even those in the East, the fact that the South Seas has this corner virtually to itself gives Pacific planters no advantage in the price field, or even any permanent monopoly,

interchangeability

n is obvious that if foreign copra Plentifuland -cheap►thereno wa,y of artificially keeping the UK price up. Only while all copra is based on world (or Philippines)

»ce does the duty work in the

uth Seas producers’ favour,

rfjor is the business of inter ajigeability, any myth: To para :rase the post: What can you iow of the oil market who only Dra knows? .. , All the South Seas copra that mes into the United Kingdom es into margarine; virtually none X) soap. But to margarine manu 3turers, copra or coconut oil is ly one of about eight edible oils at can be used and their business life is to study each commodity . its price merits, and act accord ady.

After only a short time amongst ese people here, you emerge con

iced that practically anything

n be made into margarine. I am Id that, during the war, it was anufactured from linseed and at it was' quite palatable for out two weeks after manufacture, len it redeveloped a characteristic iseeci t&stc In the last week I have seen some nfidential graphs put out for their m use by a big producer, showing at during last year’s high copra ice, the coconut oil content of argarine in the Netherlands fell as low as three per cent. And »w, in the United Kingdom, when rd became plentiful and cheap, was swung into margarine manu cture to take the place of higher st oils such as coconut and palm irnel.

Taste Preferences Just as we have been told (in spect to New Guinea cocoa and flee) that it’s all a matter of in vidual taste, so various countries ive their taste preferences in mar line, and these taste preferences ie food chemists can produce to der, by blending various combina ms of the available oils and fats.

Everything else being equal, the ritish taste seems best pleased by margarine blended from peanut 1, whale oil, palm oil and coco it oil, although, as we have ready seen, almost anything else tat is available and cheaper can j swung in to replace any of lese ingredients.

Soya-bean oil, produced normally [ vast quantities in the United bates and China is used in mar irine but is least popular with uropean consumers. However, the >od chemists of Unilever, and robably other manufacturers, are irrently hard at work trying to o something about this soya-oil efect in order to overcome mar arine consumer prejudice.

Last year world soya bean pro uction didn’t come up to expec ons, and at the same time, the live crop in the Mediterranean ountries also failed.

This year of 1960 promises a umper soya bean year, and a good

one for olive oil production —small straws in the wind that maybe win ultimately influence how much planters in Papua-New Guinea or the Gilbert and Ellice will be able to contribute to the tax-gatherer.

The By-Products

Another aspect of the edible oils’ picture that isn’t often considered is that while some of these com modities— such as copra, palm oil and palm kernel, whale oil —can be regulated directly by laws of supply and demand, production of by-pro duct oils and fats (cotton-seed oil from the cotton industry, lard from the pig industry, tallow from meat industry, etc.), go on regardless, un less something happens to the parent industry.

The overall study of the edib’e oils’ market is as fascinating as it is complicated. It is academically interesting for the copra planter to know the background of these things, but in the short-term it can t ever be much more than that. By the very nature of things here, in London, the brokers, the agents, the buyers and consumers will always be months ahead of him.

He can only take the long-term view, and the consensus of expert opinion here in London is that he can’t go wrong planting more coco nuts and producing more and better copra. He may not always get the high prices he has enjoyed in the last 15 months, but higher yields and growing demand will make up for that.

Repeat—that is expert opinion,

■mine. But, taking all things into ideration, it is hard to quarrel i it as a proposition.

at Whale Oil

jhf Do

tie world copra market could the repercussions of a disagree it amongst the international ,!ing community which will ost certainly result in a sub

itial increased production of

He oil during the current ion, reports PIM Auckland conf ident, Jim Shortall. he control of world whalmg te unhinged last July when Nor ' and the Netherlands withdrew n the International Whaling amission. i recent years the total catch ol

jen (toothed) whales permitted

be taken in the Antarctic has n set by this body at 15,000 e Whale Units—that is, 15,000 e whales (which are the largest all whales) or a proportionately tier number of other varieties arding to an agreed scale (1 Blue als 2 Fin, 21 Humpback, or 6 Sei lies).

Disagreement

Then the Commission met to ;uss the quota for the 1960 son—which began early in Janu and should normally end in l-March—there was a disagree at as to the number of chaser ,ts to be used by some nations, ■he catch of any particular fleet argely controlled by the number its chasers, though a well ipped or lucky fleet with com atively few chasers and with the of helicopters, etc., can often e a higher percentage of the il catch than another fleet with re (jh^scrs )nce the season is declared open fleets work at maximum speed ;il, at least in recent years, the [er is given by the Whaling Com >sion to cease operating.

The actual catches of each fleet, istantly radioed to the Com ssion by its inspectors aboard :h factory ship, provide the in mation whereby the Commission 1 see when the grand total of )00 Units is being approached.

The Figures

Che closing time is then decided m and all factory ships are ad ed. In practice the actual grand al is never exactly 15,000 Units, 2 to technical reasons. )n the basis of information sup ed by the various fleet operators s year, Japan and Norway have idsed that they will each take DO units, the Netherlands has ad ed 1,200 units, the UK equivalent 2,812 units, and the Soviet Union 5 stated that it will take 20 per it. of the total, whatever that >ved to be.

If the notified figures are actu ally adhered to, it is estimated that the total baleen catch in the Antarctic, will, amount to about 18 000 units. This could represent another 50,000 tons of oil or more.

Additional to the Antarctic quota of baleen whales is the catch taken from the many shore stations of both hemispheres. Additional, too, is the non-edible sperm whale oil used for industrial purposes and not competitive with coconut oil.

Nobody Worrying

All the competing nations in the Antarctic are agreed that 15,000 units should be the maximum catch and that a higher catch is sure to result in a depletion of the re sources; but this year at least no one seems to be worrying much about that in actual practice, as all are determined to have a cer tain quantity of oil.

Even with the Commission functioning properly, the USSR has stood aloof from the inspection system, and the Commission has had to accept Russian figures on its Antarctic catch. This year the Russians have a recently launched factory ship on the job, in addition to the older Slava.

Mr. C. D. Rowley, principal of the Australian School of Pacific Admin istration, Mosman, returned to Syd ney in January from leave.