Palm oil
Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the Oil palm tree. It is the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil.
The oil palm is a tropical palm tree. There are two species of oil palm, the better known one is the one originating from Guinea, Africa and was first illustrated by Nicholaas Jacquin in 1763, hence its name, Elaeis guineensis Jacq.
The fruit is reddish, about the size of a large plum and grows in large bunches. A bunch of fruits can weigh between 10 to 40 kilograms each. Each fruit contains a single seed (the palm kernel) surrounded by a soft oily pulp. Oil is extracted from both the pulp of the fruit (palm oil, an edible oil) and the kernel (palm kernel oil, used mainly for soap manufacture).
For every 100 kilograms of fruit bunches, you typically extract 22 kilograms of palm oil and 1.6 kilograms of palm kernel oil.
Palm oil itself is reddish and contains a high amount of carotenoids. It is used as cooking oil, to make margarine and is a component of many processed foods.
Both palm oil and palm kernel oil are high in olefins, a potentially valuable chemical group that can be processed into many non-food products as well. Palm oil contains mainly palmitic and oleic acids, while palm kernel oil contains mainly lauric acid. Palm oil is the largest natural source of tocotrienol, part of the Vitamin E family. Palm oil is one of the few vegetable oils relatively high in saturated fats, though it is not as high in them as palm kernel oil.
The high productivity of the Oil palm at producing oil (as high as 7,250 liters per hectare per year) has made it the prime source of vegetable oil for many tropical countries. It is also likely to be used for producing the necessary vegetable oil for biodiesel, an example being a planned refinery Darwin, Australia which will import the palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.
The Oil palm originated in West Africa but has since been planted successfully in tropical regions within 20 degrees of the equator. There is evidence of palm oil use in Ancient Egypt.
In the Republic of the Congo, or Congo Brazzaville, precisely in the Northern part, not far from Ouesso, local people produce this oil by hand. They harvest the fruit, boil it to let the water part evaporate, then they press what its left in order to collect the reddish, orange colored oil.
The world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil today is Malaysia, producing about 47% of the world's supply of palm oil. Indonesia is the second largest world producer of palm oil producing approximately 36% of world palm oil volume. Both nations are expanding their palm oil production capacity and the market continues to grow.
Worldwide palm oil production during the 2002-2003 growing season was 30.5 million metric tons, of which 3.3 tons was in the form of palm kernel oil. It is thus by far the most widely-produced tropical oil, and constititutes thirty percent of total edible oil production worldwide.
Environmental and cultural impact
There is increasing concern from environmental and other NGOs about the environmental impacts of the palm oil industry. It is claimed that rainforests are being cleared to make room for the plantations, thus reducing the habitat for some threatened species, such as the orangutan (on Borneo and Sumatra). The resulting plantations are often run by agribusiness, and locals in places such as West Papua are missing out on jobs in them to migrant workers.
The Malaysian government is refocusing the use of palm oil to the production of biodiesel; it has encouraged the building of three biodiesel plants, two biodiesel plants at Kulim and one in Singapore. This is due to the higher prices of fuel and increasing demand for alternatives sources of energy.
The plants, which will start operating middle of next year and produce 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel annually. Strong demand for biodiesel from Europe as well as Colombia, India, South Korea and Turkey was fuelling the industry's growth, as more countries sought to reduce their reliance on oil.
Malaysia has already begun preparations to change from diesel to bio-fuels by 2008, including drafting legislation that will make the switch mandatory. Being the world's largest producer of crude palm oil, Malaysia intends to take advantage of the rush in finding cleaner fuels.