KUALA LUMPUR, April 2: Main palm oil consumers in Asia are showing a healthy appetite for the edible oil even though freight rates have risen to one-year highs due to worries over the Iraq war, traders said on Wednesday.

Freight rates from Malaysia and Indonesia, the world major palm oil producers, to main buyers such as India, China and Pakistan increased by $2 a ton this week.

But at a discount of $100 a ton to arch rival soyaoil, palm oil is still the world’s most-favoured edible oil, traders said.

Palm oil was being shipped to Red Sea ports and to Europe, through the Suez Canal, without disruptions, they said.

“Palm oil is still being shipped to various destinations,” a Kuala Lumpur dealer said.

“India, for example, needs oil. The country’s edible oil stocks are quite low at around 300,000 tons compared with a normal 600,000-700,000 tons a month,” said the dealer.

Traders and freight brokers said April bookings of palm oil for India had reached 370,000 tons so far for April shipments and would reach 400,000 tons for the month, similar to March.

China has booked 200,000 tons, Pakistan 90,000 tons and the Middle East 100,000 tons. They buy palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Malaysia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, exported more than one million tons of the commodity to more than 30 countries in March, cargo surveyor SGS said. This compared with 893,322 tons in March 2002.

“We have fantastic sales to the Middle East and other places. Vessels are still getting booked. On Tuesday, we booked one ship of 9,500 tons of palm to Yemen,” a trader said.

“Some people are saying that exports will slow down in April, but I don’t think so. Consumers need oil and there’s a huge price discount to soyaoil.

“We are also talking about logistics problem in Brazil. It takes two to three weeks to load soyaoil to ships,” he said.

Brazil, the world’s No.2 soyabean exporter after the United States, had harvested 38 per cent of its soy crop as of last week, and trucks waiting to unload their cargoes at Paranagua port stretched some 70 miles.—Reuters