Vegetable Oil Prices Continue to Climb

World vegetable oil prices continued to move higher on Tuesday as growing import demand and rising crude oil prices supported prices. The gains have not been limited to the futures markets or palm oil and soybean oil with rapeseed oil and sunflower oil cash prices also rising. An increase in demand from China and India that are driven, in part, by tight inventories is behind the surge in import demand, while gains in crude oil are supporting profitability and potential demand in the biofuel sector.

Soybean oil futures rose almost 1 1/4 percent (July contract +34 basis points per pound) to settle at the highest level since March 10. The rally left the most actively traded July contract above the upper end of the recent trading range and clears the way, technically, for prices to rise to…