Palm rebounds on stronger crude oil

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures rose on Tuesday evening for their biggest daily advance in a week, rebounding from Monday's near two-week low, tracking gains in crude oil prices.

Soyoil's rise on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) also supported prices, a trader said.

The benchmark palm oil contract for March delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was up 0.5 percent at 2,146 ringgit ($523.03) a tonne at the close. That marked its strongest daily gain since Jan. 8.

It had fallen to 2,134 ringgit on Monday, the lowest level since the start of the year.

Trading volumes stood at 35,333 lots of 25 tonnes each at the end of the trading day.

"Today's gains are mostly from tracking strength in CBOT and crude oil," one Kuala Lumpur-based trader said, referring to US soyoil gains on Tuesday along with soybeans.

Chicago soybean futures ticked higher on Tuesday, recouping some of the previous session's decline, on concerns over adverse weather in South America, though gains were capped by slowing demand in China.

Palm oil prices are affected by price movements of soyoil, which competes for a share of the global vegetable oil market.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices rose 1 percent on Tuesday amid supply cuts led by OPEC and Russia, though a darkening economic outlook capped gains.

Prices of palm oil are also influenced by crude oil because the edible oil is also used as feedstock to make biodiesel.

In related oils, the Chicago March soybean oil contract rose 0.1 percent while the May soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell by 0.3 percent.

The Dalian January palm oil contract retreated by 0.5 percent.