Palm oil on the European vegetable oils market eased on Thursday on an improving production outlook for the coming months and expectations of bearish USDA supply/demand data. USDA crop and supply/demand data was issued too late in the European afternoon for players to react. Asking prices for palm oil were between $5 and $15 a tonne lower after Malaysian palm oil futures closed between 10 and 56 ringgit per tonne down, tracking lower soyaoil prices. "The market was overall slow ahead of the supply/demand data from USDA today and MPOB on Friday," one broker said.
At 1730 GMT, CBOT soyaoil futures were between 0.02 and 0.48 cents per lb lower on chart-based selling and rising expectations for a record soyabean harvest in Brazil. Sharply lower energy markets also weighed. EU rapeoil was quoted between five and eight euros per tonne down, tracking Chicago soyaoil and pressured by weaker rapeseed futures on an optimistic global oilseed supply outlook. A slightly weaker dollar also weighed on euro-priced rapeoil. Weakness in other oils caused asking prices for lauric oils to drop between $15 and $45 a tonne.