Palm oil slips to lowest in nearly three weeks

Malaysian palm oil futures fell to their lowest in almost three weeks on Monday as they tracked weaker soyabean oil markets, but losses were limited by expectations of robust export data on Tuesday. Soyabean oil prices were pressured as optimal crop weather in the US Midwest raised prospects of higher soybean supplies. Palm oil tends to track soyabean oil prices closely as the two are close substitutes. But palm oil losses were trimmed by export data for the June 1-20 period and expectations that strong demand would continue.
"Prices are tracking losses in overseas soybean oil ... Fundamentals are still positive with exports going strong and the ringgit still weak," said a trader with a local commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur. The benchmark September contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange lost 1.5 percent to close at 2,403 ringgit ($746) per tonne. Prices earlier fell to an intraday low of 2,394 ringgit, a level last seen on June 6.
Total traded volumes were thin at 25,843 lots of 25 tonnes each, well below the average 35,000 lots. Traders are looking ahead to higher demand ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramazan that begins in July this year. Cargo surveyors Intertek Testing Services and Societe Generale de Surveillance will issue June 1-25 Malaysian palm oil exports on Tuesday. Export data for the June 1-20 period showed a monthly increase of as much as 16 percent.
Higher shipments and stagnant production growth would ease Malaysian palm oil stocks further in June after a decline to 1.82 million tonnes at end-May, the lowest in nearly a year. Analysts feared palm oil harvesting in Malaysia could slow this month, as smoke from land-clearing fires in Indonesia pushed air pollution above hazardous levels in several parts of Johor.
"We are concerned that the severe haze may cripple palm oil supplies from estates engulfed by the haze," Ivy Ng, an analyst with Malaysia's CIMB Investment Bank, said in a note on Monday. In vegetable oil markets, US soyaoil for July edged down 0.6 percent in late Asian trade. The most-active January soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodities Exchange lost 2.3 percent.