Aimed at increasing the transparency in the edible oil industry, the portal has features like oil updates, news and views and interviews of personalities in the edible oil industry and related areas.

The oil updates include real time prices of edible oils, especially RBD (refined, bleached and deodorized) Palmolein and sunflower oil, apart from updates on the crude oil futures in the Commodities and Monetary Exchange of Malaysia (formerly known as Kualalumpur Commodities Exchange) and refined sunflower oil prices in the Indian ports of Chennai, Nagapattinam and Kakinada respectively. The site will have updates on other Indian ports where the oil mandis exist, viz Mumbai, Cochin, and Mangalore, by end of this month.

The portal will have news on harbour trade from all the Indian ports, the Malaysian Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade (CIBOT), apart from other information essential to small traders like trends and rules in blending, packing, retailing etc. It will also have commentary and analysis of local markets and the impact developments in the Malaysian Exchange and CIBOT will have on the Indian markets. A translation of this commentary into Tamil and Telugu will be made available by October 2000. As around 60 per cent of the 45 lakh tonnes of edible oil imported into the country is RBD Palmolein, the Indian edible oil market is heavily dependent on the developments in the Malaysian Exchange, while the changes in CIBOT have a bearing on the Malaysian markets.

Starting with Chennai, the portal will soon add details of stocks available in the various ports in the country. According to PVR Krishna Rao, proprietor of Sathya Sai Enterprises, lack of transparent pricing and reliable information during the market time result in a lot of confusion and huge losses in the market.

Oilandoilseeds.com plans to rely more on banner advertisements for the revenue and charge a subscription of around Rs 3,000 or even less depending on the advertisement revenue, said Rao. The portal may be revamped once edible oil futures start in India, he said. It plans to go for external or VC funding only after gaining popularity among traders, he added.