The yellow Food Grade barrels or purified Food Grade Tanks are being used to carry palm oil from edible oil tanks in Yangon in May.
On 22 April 2022, the Ministry of Commerce released a directive regarding the barrels for palm oil to ensure the safety of consumers and the Myanmar Edible Oil Dealers’ Association issued a statement. Merchants started using them, according to the Yangon edible oil market.
“We used iron barrel and blue plastic barrel in the past. Now, we have to use yellow plastic barrel and so the change is in the colours of the barrel for cooking oil. It is good for consumers for using Food Grade yellow plastic barrels,” said Ko Aung Htwe, a driver of the oil bowser.
According to the new system, the locally produced yellow plastic barrel is priced at K50,000 weighing six visses and 50 ticals at the factory and it is about K57,000 outside, he added.
As the designated barrel cannot be bought in time, the old iron barrels and plastic barrels used for chemical imports are painted with yellow colour, said Ko Myo Thein.
In the barrel market, the price of a new thick iron barrel is K34,000 while K43,000 for the yellow iron barrel and K150,000 for a small tank that can accommodate five oil barrels, he said.
Around 2000, the palm oil was directly imported using the iron barrel and with an In-Bulk system at the hull of edible oil vessels later and filled the oil tanks in Yangon. The current changes are made for the safety of consumers as the barrels of customers are not clean enough when they take out the oil from the oil tanks, the cooking oil merchants said.
In the scrap market, the price of an iron barrel is K1,000 per viss and the iron barrel weighing 13 visses is priced at K13,000, according to the market. — TWA/GNLM
