KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures fell on Tuesday as global crude oil prices tumbled to 12-year lows this week, with declining production data from a government body doing little to boost market sentiment.
The palm oil contract for March on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange lost 0.6 percent to 2,383 ringgit ($540.49) per tonne at the midday break, recovering slightly from a new three-week low of 2,372 ringgit reached earlier in the day.
"The market still looks weak on the back of crude oil trading at new lows and on uncertain Asian equity markets," said a trader from Kuala Lumpur.
"Any rebound in the afternoon session is due to a
retracement on an oversold market," the trader added.
Traded volume stood at 41,572 lots of 25 tonnes each.
Global crude oil prices have fallen by about 20 percent
since the start of the year as analysts scrambled to cut their
2016 oil price forecasts and traders bet on further price falls.
U.S. crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading
around $31.00 per barrel while Brent crude futures was
at $31.37 at 1010 GMT.
Data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board on Monday showed a
1.1 percent fall in December exports as compared with a Reuters
poll forecast of 6.6 percent fall.
Inventories and production also fell in December, dropping
by 9.5 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively.
Palm oil may slide a bit more to 2,367 ringgit per tonne, as
it has broken support at 2,394 ringgit, according to Reuters
market analyst for commodities Wang Tao.
In competing vegetable oil markets, the U.S. March soyoil
contract lost 0.3 percent, while the May soybean oil
contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange was down 1.2
percent.
Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1014 GMT
Contract Month Last Change Low High Volume
MY PALM OIL JAN6 2233 -6.00 2233 2233 15
MY PALM OIL FEB6 2309 -12.00 2297 2315 1017
MY PALM OIL MAR6 2383 -15.00 2372 2395 19138
CHINA PALM OLEIN MAY6 4624 -88.00 4612 4702 1350496
CHINA SOYOIL MAY6 5530 -68.00 5522 5582 552676
CBOT SOY OIL MAR6 29.15 +2.80 29.13 29.31 7355
INDIA PALM OIL JAN6 417.70 +2.80 411.50 418.40 1777
INDIA SOYOIL JAN6 597.35 -1.60 591.80 598.40 5630
NYMEX CRUDE FEB6 31.01 -0.40 30.41 31.39 60612
Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne
CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound
Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne
India soy oil in Indian rupee per 10 kg
Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel
($1 = 4.4090 ringgit)
($1 = 66.8550 Indian rupees)
($1 = 6.5752 Chinese yuan)
- Reuters
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