CPO futures market to see technical correction next week

KUALA LUMPUR: The crude palm oil (CPO) futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives is expected to experience technical correction next week with high supply in the market weighing on prices.

Interband Group of Companies senior palm oil trader Jim Teh said higher stocks in Malaysia and Indonesia, which together stood at more than six million tonnes, coupled with production season in the domestic market would put pressure on prices.

"Exports data for June 1-20 are not that encouraging and we are heading into (a possible) recession where people would only buy what they need.

"Because of inflation, buyers would be very cautious on the pricing,” he told Bernama.

Teh said despite the recent selldown in CPO, the planters were still making profits given the cost of production which ranged between RM1,600 and RM1,800 per tonne.

For the week just ended, the Malaysian CPO futures were mostly influenced by massive selloff in palm and soya bean oil on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, weakness in the June 1-20 exports data, and higher palm exports coming out of Indonesia ahead of peak production months.

On a Friday-to-Friday basis, spot month July 2022 fell sharply by RM881 to RM4,798 a tonne, August 2022 dropped RM822 to RM4,702 a tonne, benchmark September 2022 lost RM790 to RM4,664 a tonne, and October 2022 declined RM761 to RM4,668 a tonne.

Total volume rose to 438,658 lots from 397,816 lots in the previous week, while open interest narrowed to 215,808 contracts from 298,491 contracts previously.

The physical CPO price for July South finished the week at RM4,900 a tonne compared with June South’s RM6,550 a tonne on the previous Friday. - Bernama