Palm Oil comes from the fruit of a palm tree, a tropical species that originated in West Africa, but now grows as hybrid in many parts of the world, including Southeast Asia and Central America.  The relatively low priced oil is used for a variety of purposes.  The world’s demand for palm oil has soared high in the last two decades first, for its use in food, consumer products and more recently as the raw material for biofuel.

Palm Oil has a variety of uses from food to cosmetics, medicines, lubricants, fertilizers and as biofuel.  It is the second most traded vegetable oil in the world next to soybean oil (Casson, 1999).  It is also now being used as an ingredient in biodiesel and as a fuel to be burnt in power stations to produce electricity.  Thus, there is an increase in the global demand for the commodity.