Strong production of Southeast Asian palm oil is the best hope of boosting cooking oil supplies as soybean oil gets soaked up to make biofuel, its attraction redoubled by unrest in Libya that has driven crude oil to more than $100 per barrel.
Vegetable oil markets had braced for a fall in palm oil prices in the second half of 2010. They expected strong output from top producer Indonesia as it harvested a bigger acreage, and as No. 2 supplier Malaysia improved yields.
