SINGAPORE: Malaysian palm oil futures retreated from a one-month high on Thursday as traders booked profits, while losses in rival edible oils due to higher-than-expected U.S. supplies added pressure.
The benchmark palm oil contract for April delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange slid 23 ringgit, or 0.58%, to 3,974 ringgit ($921.61) a tonne by the end of trading on Thursday.
Palm futures are marginally lower due to profit taking and positioning ahead of Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB) data due tomorrow, said Sathia Varqa, co-founder of Singapore-based Palm Oil Analytics.
Malaysia’s palm oil exports are expected to have slumped 21.7% to 1.15 million tonnes in January due to slowing shipments to its largest consumers India and China, a Reuters survey showed on Monday.
The MPOB and cargo surveyors are scheduled to release key supply and demand data on Friday.
Palm oil hits one-month closing high on supply worries
The U.S. Agriculture Department on Wednesday reported bigger-than-expected soybean supplies due to weaker domestic demand and lowered its forecast for Argentine soybean harvests.
Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade were down 0.07%. Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract dipped 0.11%, while its palm oil contract gave up 0.07%.
Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s biggest palm oil producers, plan to send envoys to the European Union to discuss the impact of the bloc’s new deforestation law on their palm oil sectors, ministers from the Southeast Asian countries said on Thursday.
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