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Indonesian olein falls,palmoil sold at 2,311rph/kg

JAKARTA: Indonesian palm olein prices softened in late trading on Tuesday on the absence of buyers, who had yet to escape from the Chinese New Year holiday mood, traders said.

Meanwhile, the state marketing centre sold 13,500 tonnes of crude palm oil in a tender for 14,500 tonnes to four local companies at 2,233 and 2,311 rupiah/kg.

"The market is not normal yet. Players are still in their holiday mood. Prices fell today because we could not find buyers," said one trader in Medan, North Sumatra.

Olein fell to 2,775 rupiah/kg from 2,825-2,850 rupiah/kg last week. Most of the country's cooking oil traders are ethnic Chinese.

The marketing centre, which sells crude palm oil produced by state-run plantations, sold 4,000 tonnes of oil to PT Pacific Medan Industri, 1,500 tonnes to PT Multi Mas Nabati Asahan and 2,500 tonnes to PT Tunas Baru Lampung at 2,311 rupiah/kg.

It sold another 5,500 tonnes to PT Bina Karya Prima at 2,233 rupiah/kg.

Indonesia's ethnic Chinese openly celebrated the lunar new year at the weekend for the first time in more than a generation

President Abdurrahman Wahid repealed the decree passed by former President Suharto in 1967, banning the ethnic Chinese from celebrating their new year in public.

The official Antara news agency reported on Tuesday about 21,000 tonnes of diesel-tainted crude palm oil rejected by European buyers were being unloaded at Belawan port in North Sumatra.

It said the oil arrived at the port last week and was being pumped into tanks operated by state-run PT Deli Tama Indonesia. The oil was returned to Indonesia by a Hong Kong-owned tanker, Chembul.

Industry sources said about 85,000 tonnes of diesel-tainted oil was found to have been shipped from Belawan to Rotterdam last year in a scandal that embarrassed the world's second largest producer. Belawan is Indonesia's main palm oil export port.

The government said the contaminated oil came from Deli Tama's tanks and it was investigating how it happened.-Reuters