JAKARTA – The Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) Secretary General Eddy Martono said that the national production of crude palm oil (CPO) is potential to decrease in 2023 due to the problem of fertilizers.
“Palm oil production next year will be slightly disturbed by the expensive price and difficulty of procuring the fertilizers. As a result, the growers, especially the smallholders will reduce the use of fertilizers that will then affect their production,” Eddy told Kontan.co.id on Sunday, 11 December 2022.
Due to such challenge, Eddy projected that the CPO production in 2023 will only reach around 51 – 52 million tons, which are lower than the projected CPO production this year at 52-53 million tons.
Eddy also predicted that the war of Russia-Ukraine will still affect the global economic condition in 2023, which will possibly then weaken the demand for palm oil. “But we see potential opportunities for palm oil as a result of supply disturbances on other vegetable oils, such as sunflower oil,” he said.
But despite the fact, a number of palm oil industry players are optimistic that they can increase their production in 2023. PT Dharma Satya Nusantara Tbk (DSNG) Director Jenti Widjaja said that most of its oil palm plantations in East Kalimantan have returned to normal condition since the third quarter 2022 after seeing production decline in 2019 due to El Nino. She predicted its CPO production will increase by 10% next year.
“We’ll realize it by raising productivity and improving our cost efficiency through technological innovations, using renewable energy to replace fossil fuels and other possible ways,” Jenti told Kontan.co.id.
Regarding price, Jenti predicted that the CPO price will stay at the current level until the first quarter 2023, and then potential to decrease along with the production increase of the palm oil industry.
PT Cisadane Sawit Raya Tbk (CSRA) has also targeted to increase production in 2023. “We target to increase production of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) by 20% and CPO over 50% due to the operation of new palm oil mills in Tapanuli Selatan,” CSRA Corporate Secretary Iqbal Prastowo told Kontan.co.id.
He said that to anticipate the problem of fertilizers, CSRA has prepared possible application of fertilizers of slow release, which is expected to reduce cost of fertilizers significantly. (*)
Source: KONTAN.CO.ID | Featured image infosawit.com
