Malaysian palm oil futures edged up at the close of trade on Friday, but remained largely caught in a range as demand remained tepid. The benchmark palm oil contract for October delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was slightly higher, up 0.05 percent to 2,194 ringgit ($540.39) a tonne at the end of the trading day, reversing earlier losses.
The contract was also up 2.2 percent on a weekly basis, snapping two previous weeks of losses. Trading volume stood at 51,933 lots of 25 tonnes each in the evening. The earlier fall in the contract was attributed to a report from independent inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia who on Friday morning said Malaysian palm oil exports for July 1-20 fell 1.3 percent versus the corresponding period of the previous month.
Traders said a second export data set released in the evening, showing rising demand, had helped lift the market. Cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance reported a 3.3 percent rise for the same export period with higher demand coming from India.
Exports from Malaysia, the world's second largest palm oil producer, had already declined for a third straight month in June, down 12.6 percent at 1.13 million tonnes, on slower demand from key buyers India and China. In other related oils, the Chicago December soyabean oil contract fell 0.1 percent, while the September soyabean oil contract on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange was down 0.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the Dalian September palm oil contract edged down 0.6 percent. Palm oil prices are usually impacted by the performance of other edible oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market. Palm oil looks neutral in a range of 2,187-2,218 ringgit per tonne, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.
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