BEIJING, Dec 9 (Reuters) - China, the world's biggest
consumer of edible oils, will restart its regular weekly sales
of rapeseed oil from state reserves by offering 63,800 tonnes on
Friday, according to an official announcement.
Friday's sale includes stocks stored from 2009 and 2010,
according to a statement posted on an official website late on
Tuesday (www.grainmraket.com.cn).
"The sate reserves are too high and they have been trying to
reduce some stocks which have been stored too long," said Lu
Yun, an analyst with Shanghai JC Intelligence (JCI).
China's state sales of rapeseed oil were sluggish in the
first half of the year, with market participants saying Beijing
set bidding prices too high for poor-quality stocks.
The government is still sitting on about 5.8 million tonnes
of rapeseed oil stocks, including 400,000 tonnes stored in 2009
and 800,000 tonnes stored in 2010, according to JCI.
News of the sale has pressured domestic Zhengzhou rapeseed
oil futures 0#COI: . The front-month contract COIF6 was
trading 2.33 percent down at 5,746 yuan ($894.46) per tonne by
0213 GMT.
($1 = 6.4240 yuan)