Malaysian crude palm oil jumped on Monday to hit a three-and-a-half month high after a top analyst said a lower European rapeseed crop will spur more imports for other vegetable oils, including palm, and as soybeans gained. High export figures and gains in crude oil also helped palm oil to jump higher, traders said.
The benchmark October contract on Bursa Malaysia's Derivatives Exchange closed up 53 ringgit or 2.11 percent to 2,570 ringgit ($813) a tonne by lunch break after trading as high as 2,583 ringgit - a level not seen since April 9. Overall volumes rose to 16,141 lots of 25 tonnes each from the usual 10,000 lots.
The European Union is expected to harvest a sharply lower rapeseed crop in 2010, creating tighter supplies for crushing and spurring more imports of other vegetable oils including palm oil, soyoil, and sunoil, Thomas Mielke, head of global oilseed research group Oil World, told Reuters on Monday.
"The market closed higher after Mielke said a shortfall in the European rapeseed harvest would increase demand for palm oil. So the bears ran to cover their shorts," a trader in a local commodity brokerage firm said. Arid conditions have created crop stress and the rapeseed harvest this year could likely fall 7.8 percent to 19.9 million tonnes from 2009, Mielke said.
"Soybean markets, crude oil are strong and exports figures are also supportive. If soybean markets rallied higher, palm will continue its gain tomorrow and can test 2,600 level," said another trader in Malaysia. Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for July rose 4.7 percent to 1,402,317 tonnes from 1,339,478 tonnes shipped in June, cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance said on Monday.
Corn and soybean futures gained nearly 1 percent on Monday, tracking the bullrun in wheat despite a favourable weather aiding crops in the US Midwest. Other vegetable oil markets also gained. US soyaoil for August delivery rose 0.69 percent and the most-active January 2011 soybean oil contract on Dalian Commodity exchange rallied 1.76 percent.
INDONESIA PALM TRADES The Jakarta-based PT KBN Nusantara, formerly known as the state marketing centre, sold 9,000 tonnes of crude palm oil in an auction on Monday with the top price at 7,806 rupiah ($0.874) per kg, against 7,619 rupiah per kg on previous day.
Producers in Medan, home to Indonesia's main palm oil export port of Belawan in Sumatra island, did not hold palm oil auction on Friday. Refiners in Jakarta offered refined, bleached, deodorised (RBD) palm olein - used as cooking oil - at 8,050-8,100 rupiah per kg, against 8,000 rupiah per kg on Friday.
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