LONDON (Alliance News) - DekelOil Public Ltd said on Thursday that sales of crude palm oil decreased in the six months to the end of June, reflecting a reduction in the volume of fresh fruit bunches harvested.
Fresh fruit bunches collection in the first half of 2018 was 96,195 tonnes, down 18% from 117,706 tonnes for the same period a year before.
This led to a drop in crude palm oil production, also by 18%, to 22,242 tonnes from 26,947 and in turn a fall in sales by 9.4% to 22,271 tonnes to 24,570 tonnes.
In addition, the average crude palm oil price fell to USD549 per tonnes from USD707 the prior year, due to weaker international benchmark pricing and the strong appreciation of the euro against the dollar.
DekelOil said it has continued to centre its cost-saving programme around logistics and plantation management and is also looking to take advantage of the lower availability of palm oil due to a poor harvest.
"We have little control over unseasonable harvests and lower global CPO prices, but we can take steps to make the best out of challenging trading conditions. As our cost-management programme and our successful efforts to secure external supplies of kernels to make use of lower mill utilisation demonstrate, this is what we are doing," said Executive Director Lincoln Moore.
"In the longer term, we are confident that our ongoing programme to supply local smallholders with more productive plants grown at our state of the art nursery will help boost overall yields in the area, both during poor and strong harvests," Moore added.
Shares in DekelOil were down 8.7% at 5.48 pence on Thursday.
Dekel Agri (DKL)