KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures dropped on Monday as caution over rising stockpiles outweighed positive September export numbers.
The benchmark palm oil contract for December delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.3 percent at 2,168 ringgit ($523.55) a tonne at noon.
Trading volumes stood at 32,628 lots of 25 tonnes each.
"The market is down on rising palm oil stockpiles, but the weaker ringgit and crude oil prices provide some underlying support," a Kuala Lumpur-based trader said.
A weaker ringgit makes palm oil more attractive to traders holding foreign currencies. The currency was trading 0.1 percent lower on Monday.
Malaysian inventories last rose to a seven-month high of 2.49 million tonnes in August, according to official data from a Malaysian industry regulator.
Last week, industry analyst Dorab Mistry pegged Malaysia's peak end-stocks at 3-3.3 million tonnes for the year, while estimating that Indonesia's inventories are currently close to 5 million tonnes and will keep rising.
Another trader said the September export numbers failed to cheer the market.
Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for September rose 51.6 percent compared with August, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Friday, while independent inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia data showed the exports rose 49.2 percent.
In other related oils, the Chicago September soybean oil contract was down 0.1 percent.
The Dalian January soybean oil contract and January palm oil contract were untraded as the Dalian Commodity Exchange was closed for national holidays in China.
Palm oil prices are affected by movements of other edible oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
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