Palm up after suprise jump in Malaysian futures

ROTTERDAM: Asking prices for palm oil on the European vegetable oil market firmed on Wednesday after Malaysian palm oil futures made a surprising jump in the last minutes of the session, market sources said.

"The BMD closed significantly firmer, and everybody was trying to discover the reason for this. The market had been down for most of the session. The sudden change back up discouraged most buyers," one broker said.

Palm oil was offered between unchanged and $15 a tonne up from Tuesday after Malaysian palm oil futures closed up between 31 and 52 ringgit per tonne.

RBD palm olein traded unchanged to a tad lower most of the day following the weaker trend in rival soyoil, and buyers disappeared at the end of the session. October delivery changed hands at $1,080 and $1,075 a tonne fob Malaysia, while Nov/Dec traded from $1,075 and $1,065 and both Jan/March and April/June traded from $1,075 down to $1,060 and back up to $1,075, up $2.50 from Tuesday.

At 1630 GMT CBOT soyoil futures were between 0.14 and 0.39 cents per lb down, along with weak mineral oil.

Liquid oils, soyoil, sunoil and rapeoil, were offered between 7 euros a tonne up from Tuesday and 3 euros per tonne down, following Chicago soyoil, lower mineral oil and a weaker dollar, which weighed on euro-priced products. Jan/March EU sunoil changed hands at $1,270 a tonne ex-tank.

Lauric oils were offered between unchanged and $10 a tonne down from Tuesday, mostly following Chicago and mineral oil, but buyers showed little interest and no deals were reported.

Copyright Reuters, 2011