China shall expand rice bran oil to address shortages

BEIJING Nov 9 (Reuters) - China, the world's largest rice producer and consumer, will expand production of rice bran oil to help ease shortages of edible oil supplies, a company executive said on Monday.

China, also the world's largest edible oil consumer, has to rely on imports for 66 percent of its needs even as a large amount of rice bran is simply used for animal feed, said Tu Changming, trading director with the China operation of Wilmar International (WLIL.SI).

"Most of Chinese rice mills are small in size with backward technology and rice bran has been ignored and not fully utilized," Tu told an oilseed conference over the weekend.

Rice bran oil is the oil extracted from the germ and inner husk of rice. It is rich in vetamin E and suitable for high-temperature cooking such as stir frying and deep frying. It is popular as a cooking oil in Japan.

China's annual rice output was about 185 million tonnes. If half of the rice bran production went to produce rice bran oil, it would account for 1.1 million tonnes of edible oil, equivalent to 5.8 million tonnes of soybeans, according to a transcription of Tu's speech.

China's consumption of edible oils has been doubled over the past decade to 24 million tonnes currently and consumption could rise by 10 million tonnes in the coming decade, estimated Tu.

But limited farmland meant Beijing has had to secure more acreage to grow cereals instead of soybeans.

China is already the world's largest soybean importer, with annual imports accounting for more than half of the world trade in the last marketing year. The country also imports large amounts of rapeseed and palmoil and soyoil as well. (For details, click on SOY/CN)

Tu, contacted by Reuters, said only 10 percent of China's rice bran was used to produce edible oil and the rest was used for animal feed.

Wilmar International has a rice mill with daily capacity of 1,000 tonnes in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, which can produce 12 tonnes of edible oil a day, said Tu.

"We think bran rice oil is the trend of future development," said Tu. But he said tens of thousands of small rice mills in the country meant that it was difficult to collect enough bran.

(Reporting by Niu Shuping and Tom Miles; Editing by Ken Wills)