Malaysian palm oil futures ended the trading day higher on Tuesday evening, after earlier striking a 5-week high following overnight gains in soyaoil on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).
The benchmark palm oil contract for January delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was up 0.1 percent at 2,244 ringgit ($540.53) a tonne at the close of trade, after rising to its highest since Sept. 12 at 2,257 ringgit earlier in the session.
Trading volumes stood at 41,457 lots of 25 tonnes each at the end of the trading day.
"Palm is up on soyabean oil's strong overnight gains," said a futures trader in Kuala Lumpur, referring to CBOT soyaoil.
However, the gains may not sustain as palm oil shipments from Malaysia during October could slow down.
Malaysian palm oil exports for the first half of October fell 29 percent from a month earlier, reported cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance on Tuesday. On Monday, independent inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia reported a 27.5 percent decline for the same time period, while Intertek Testing Services, another cargo surveyor, said shipments fell 32.8 percent. In other related oils, the Chicago December soyabean oil contract jumped 1.3 percent on Monday, aided by poor Midwest harvest conditions, strong domestic crushing demand and signs of US soya cargoes headed to China.
It was last down 0.4 percent on Tuesday. The January soyabean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 0.9 percent, while the Dalian January palm oil contract declined 0.6 percent.
Palm oil prices are affected by movements of other edible oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.