Contributor: Narasimhan Santhanam, Cofounder & Director, CastorOil.in
The Global Castor Conference 2014 was held in Ahmedabad on 22nd Feb 2014. I on behalf of CastorOil.in attended the conference.
This conference is by far the largest and most prestigious castor congregation in the world, so it was a pleasure to be present there.
This is the first of a series of blog posts I plan to write on the conference.
In this post, I will provide an overview of what happened at the conference and following this up in the next few days with details and inputs from specific sessions at the conference, and also from my interactions with a number of experts present there.
Stats
The conference had about 450 industry professionals participating, from around the world. Pretty much every important entity in the world of castor was present physically or virtually (through video conference).
The conference itself was a fairly brief affair, just one day (Feb 22nd) and five sessions.
Brief details of each session presented in this post.
Inaugural Session
Welcome Address: Vijay Data, President SEA (Solvent Extractors Association)
Brief Overview of the Castor Industry – Abhay Udeshi, Chairman, SEA Castor Seed, SEA Castor Seed & Oil Promotion Council
Address by Guests of Honour
- Samir Shah – MD, National Commodities & Derviatives Exchange (he was replaced by a lady from the same organization)
- Suresh Kotak , Chairman, Kotak Group of Companies
Keynote Address
- Bhakul Dholakia, Director, Adani Institute of Infra Management
Address by Chief Guest
- Ramesh Abhishek. Chairman, Forward Market Commission
Vote of Thanks
- Atul Chaturvedi, Co-chairman, SEA Castor Seed & Oil Promotion Council
Picture of the Inaugural Session
Global Castor Oil Consumption Outlook & Emerging Trend
Moderator: G Chandrashekar, Commodities Editor, Hindu Business Line, Mumbai
Panelists:
- India: Atul Chaturevedi, Adani Wilmar, Ahmedabad
- Europe: Hans Boloney, Technical Oils, Nidera, Netherlands
- China: Wu Zhidong, Kong Associate
- World: Thomas Mielke, Iste Mielke GmbH (Video presentation)
Pic from the above session – L-r – Hans,
Chandrashekar, Atul, Wu. Thomas was thru video conference
Indian Castor Seed & Oil Scenario & Expectation
- Moderator – Haresh Vyas, Royal Castor Products
- Vikram Udeshi (Jayant Agro Organics) – Industry perspective
- Pankaj Kumar (Adani Wilmar) – Industry perspective
- Manoj Agarwal, Kedarnath Corp, Palanpur, Trader – Trader’s perspective
- Alok Agarwal, Babulal Bajragnglal, Sumerpur, Trader – Trader’s perspective
- Prahlad Singh Champavat, Farmer, Aravali Dist – Farmer’s perspective
- Maganbhai Patel, Farmer, Palanpur – Farmer’s perspective
- Abhisek Govilkar, Vice President. NCDEX – Exchange perspective
Pic from the castor seed & oil scenario expectation session
Indian Castor Crop Survey (2013-14)
Naresh pednekar & Suresh Sawant – Nielsen (India)
Castor Oil Price Forecast
Nagraj Meda – Transgraph Consulting, Hyderabad
Castor Oil Price Outlook 2014 – Panel Discussion
Moderator: Shvetal Vakil from Mumbai
Participants
- Atul Chaturvedi, Adani Wilmar
- Abhay Udeshi, Jayant Agro Organics
- Kanubhai Thakkar, Gokul Refoils & Solvents
- Hans Bolomey, Technical Oils, Nidera, Netherlands
- T. Tantiponganant, Thai Castor Industries, Bangkok
- James Bray, Fuerst Day Lawson, London
- Timm Wiegmann, Alberdingki Boley GmbH, Germany
L – r – Atul Chaturvedi (Adani Wilmar), Timm Wiegmann (Alberdingki Boley GmbH), James Bray (Fuerst Day Lawson), T. Tantiponganant (Thai Castor Oil), Shvetal Vakil, , Hans Bolomey (Technical Oils, Nidera, Netherlands), Kanubhai Thakkar (Gokul Refoils & Solvents), Abhay Udeshi (Jayant Agro Organics)
A Pic of the Global Castor Constellation – the global big shots all at one place
And finally, the not so big shots 
– Me (right) and Rajiv Ram who had come from LMC, UK
This post was written by Narasimhan Santhanam, Cofounder & Director, CastorOil.in
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