Malaysian palm oil price drops on high inventory, subdued related oils

Malaysian palm oil futures ended higher on Wednesday, tracking buoyant soy oil and crude oil prices, and prompting short covering among traders.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures charted their first decline in four days on Thursday evening, slipping from the previous session's one-week high, as ample supplies dented sentiment.

Related edible oils largely traded flat, with the March soybean oil contract on the Chicago Board of Trade falling 0.2 percent while May soybean oil on the Dalian Commodity Exchange edged up by 0.1 percent.

The Dalian January palm oil contract was up 0.5 percent.

Palm oil prices are also affected by movements in other edible oils that compete in the global vegetable oils market.

The benchmark palm oil contract for March delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell 0.7 percent to 2,521 ringgit ($620.17) a tonne by the end of the trading day.

It had risen to its highest in more than a week in the previous session and is up 2.9 percent so far this week.

Palm, however, is down 3.2 percent for the month and has shed nearly 20 percent of its value since the start of the year.

Trading volumes were thin at 26,701 lots of 25 tonnes each on Thursday evening.

"Year-end stocks are still very high," a Kuala Lumpur futures trader said, adding that soyoil on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade was also sluggish.

"Palm prices can't go up very high ... though next month's production will be down."

Palm oil production is experiencing a seasonal decline until after the first quarter of next year. Output fell 3.3 percent to 1.94 million tonnes in November. 

However, prices of the tropical oil have slumped since the start of November on the back of rising inventory levels and weak demand. Exports from Malaysia fell 11.9 percent to 1.35 million tonnes in November but have improve this month. 

Demand rose by about 1 percent for Dec. 1-25 compared with the same period a month earlier, data released by cargo surveyors Intertek Testing Services (ITS) and Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) showed on Tuesday. - Reuters