For week ending Mar. 06, 2008

       President Gloria M. Arroyo has appointed Mr. Jesus L. Arranza, UCAP director and president of Coconut Oil Refiners Association, member of the Governing Board of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) vice Oscar F. Santos. His appointment paper was signed by the President last December 18, 2007. Also appointed to the PCA Governing Board was Mr. Luis L. Evangelista vice Dunga K. Lim. With the appointment of Mr. Arranza, UCAP is confident that the private sectors’ interest is ably represented in the Board. Congratulations Mr. Arranza and Mr. Evangelista

       Exempted from the Order are those trees that pose a threat and danger to life, limb and property; damaged by typhoons in declared typhoon calamity areas; for areas duly authorized for conversion; and for personal use of the farmer for housing or animal shelter but which should not exceed five trees. Garin warned that violators of Republic Act No. 8048 and the rules and regulations issued by the PCA face a stiff punishment of one to six years of imprisonment, or a fine of P50,000 to P500,000, or both. He pointed out that the conservation of existing coconut trees is paramount to the objective of increasing coconut production to meet the growing demand for coconut products.

       The PCA reported the number of coconut trees in the four districts of the province as follows: first district 24,056,918 coconut trees, second district 5,102,883, third district 18,776,773 and fourth district 15,728,871. The wide scale coconut tree inventory will determine coconut production needed in bio-diesel production. The governor asked the people to help establish coconut nurseries and coconut seed gardens.

       Malaysia was the month’s largest source of lauric oil providing a total of 24,500 MT (8,500 MT) of palm kernel oil representing 57.1% of aggregate uptake. Shipment from the Indonesia which shared 36.1% or 15,500 (45,100 MT) was made up of 12,500 MT (39,700 MT) palm kernel oil and 3,000 MT (5,400 MT) coconut oil. The Philippines handled 6.3% or 2,700 MT (2,700 MT) of coconut oil. Other countries contributed 200 MT (100 MT) of coconut oil.

       CPO production is forecast to rise to 19.81 million MT in 2008 from 17.37 million MT in 2007. However, palm oil companies under GAPKI projected a lower figure at 18.0 million MT for 2008 from 17.5 million MT output last year.

       The government plans to impose a tax of Rs300,000 per acre of coconut land that is sold for other purposes and a tax on land owners who cut down coconut trees. No specific figure, however, was disclosed on the latter taxation. The measures aim to prevent coconut prices from rising even higher and ensure enough supply for domestic and industrial users. The country’s desiccated coconut mills have been suffering from shortage of nuts for their export businesses.

       Before the Boeing 747 flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Sir Richard Branson, president of the airline said the breakthrough would help Virgin Atlantic to fly its plane using clean fuel sooner than expected. Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Charles predicted the biofuel used would produce much less CO2 than regular jet fuel, but acknowledged it can take weeks to analyze the data from the flight. The technical engineers on the test flight were to take readings and analyze data to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions. General Electric and Imperium Renewables partnered with Virgin Atlantic in this experiment.

       India’s import of soybean oil is expected to decline this year to 1.3 million MT, from 1.4 million MT last year owing to high international prices and larger domestic supplies. In contrast, import of palm oil is expected to rise. As of the first four months of the current marketing year, total palm oil import rose 22% year-on-year, while soybean oil fell 48%. Current market prices favor more purchases of palm oil as landed cost of crude palm oil at Indian ports according to the USDA report is cheaper by $190/MT CIF compared to crude degummed soybean oil.

       In the case of biodiesel, inbound trade accounted for 60% while outbound 40%. Most of the biodiesel discharged in Rotterdam comprised mainly of the B99 blend from the United States. Import from the US represented 400,000 MT of total Rotterdam throughput in 2007 while the United Kingdom and Germany each accounted for about 60,000 MT of imports. The port authority said that most of the US biodiesel was re-exported via Rotterdam, with a third going to the UK. Spain, France and Latvia each took in around 50,000 MT.