KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures retreated on Friday from a six-week peak hit in the previous session as rival soyaoil weakened and shipments outlook slowed, but the contract logged a 7% monthly gain.
The benchmark palm oil contract for May delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange settled down 42 ringgit, or 1.11%, at 3,742 ringgit ($924.41) a tonne.
But palm rose 6.3% for the week, its biggest weekly jump in four.
Some investors were taking profits after prices scaled a six-week high on Thursday, said Sathia Varqa, co-founder of Singapore-based Palm Oil Analytics.
"Palm discount to soybean oil is super-attractive on the cash and futures market, though still highly volatile," he said.
Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Feb. 1-25 rose 14.2% to 967,845 tonnes from Jan. 1-25, cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance said. This is smaller compared with a 28% monthly rise in exports during Feb. 1-20.
Indonesia has set the crude palm oil reference price for March at $1,036.22 per tonne, a trade ministry regulation seen by Reuters showed on Friday.
The world's largest producer of crude palm oil, Malaysia's FGV Holdings in a exchange filing said it anticipates 2021 to be another eventful year on the back of challenges in labour supply and volatility of crude palm oil prices. Dalian's most-active soyaoil contract fell 0.3%, while its palm oil contract gained 0.2%. Soyaoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade were down 0.6%.
Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils, as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
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