Prices of groundnut oil are all set to rise in the coming months due to a supply shortfall following from lower world production. The output of the three major producers-India, USA and China-is expected to fall 1.4 million tonnes from last year to an estimated 12.4 million tonnes. A prospective bumper crop in Argentina will alleviate the supply tightness from April 1998 onwards.The total world production is expected to decline by 1.2 million tonnes, or about six per cent, to 19 million tonnes. Since opening stocks in the major producing countries are relatively low, this season's total supplies will be reduced considerably to 19.9 million tonnes (21.3 million million tonnes in the last season) after continuous growth during the last five seasons.
According to a study conducted by Oil World, despite lower supplies prospective
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