25th Feb, 2006: MUMBAI - The bird flue scare seems to have taken a toll on the prices of soyabean and some soyabean products. Soyabean price is down by around 25% in the domestic market.
However, since bulk of the current refined soya oil production is extracted from old soyabean stock, the impact on the end product is less. And hence refined soya oil price dipped by 5%.
Apart from soyabean and refined oil. soyameala byproduct of soyabean and major poultry feed, is facing declining demand as culling of chickens continues in many of the bird flu infected farms.
A week before the outbreak of the dreaded virus in Maharashtra, soyabean and refined soya oil prices had firmed up.
In the spot market, soyabean was trading at Rs 1,200 on Friday, down Rs 40, while refined soya oil was trading at Rs 362, down Rs 10 over the past 7 days.
Refined soya oil futures prices in National Board of Trade (NBOT) dipped with the news of bird flue. Until February 18, refined soya oil price rose, and reached a peak at Rs 382.5. The price began to slide with reports of bird flue.
When the exchange re-opened on February 20, the price headed south as traders feared a lack of buying from poultries. Since then the downtrend continued unabated and the current price is around the Rs 370-mark.
Reduction in poultry production and consumption will unavoidably reduce demand for the feed. Price might have come down further but international demand has stopped the slide somewhat, said Manish Gupta, MD, Gujarat Ambuja Exports.
India exports refined soya oil to countires like China, Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam. Traders are expecting a fresh excise duty on soya trade, said Kanubhai Thakkar of Gokul Refoils & Solvent.
Not only in India, some of the market reports seem to suggest that bird flu and rain has hit South American Soyabean Futures prices.
Apart from India, soyabean is also traded in a few foreign commodity exchanges like Chicago Board of Trade and Dalian Commodity Exchange.
Globally soyabean is the most popular oilseed produced. The global production of soyabeans is estimated at 170-185m tonnes. About 85% of the global production is crushed for oil.
