Malaysian palm oil down

Malaysian crude palm oil futures closed lower on Friday as players booked profit after fresh eight-year highs in the session. The benchmark third-month July contract on the Bursar Malaysia Derivatives Exchange finished down 11 ringgit, or 0.5 percent, at 2,288 ringgit ($669) a tonne.
The contract hit a session high of 2,305 ringgit, a level not seen since November 1998. "It is more of profit-taking because yesterday the prices shot up too much in response to the bullish price outlooks at the Indonesia conference," said a dealer with a leading plantation house.
Traders said palm oil futures were likely to decline next week before the key exports and stocks numbers are announced on Thursday. "There should be more profit-taking in the coming week until more news comes in from palm oil board and cargo surveyors," one trader said.
The market has gained more than 14 percent this year after surging 40 percent in 2006 on the back of demand from the biodiesel and food sectors. The most-active months rose 3.8 percent on Thursday after top industry analyst Dorab Mistry gave bullish forecasts for palm oil prices.
Malaysian palm oil prices will soon reach 2,400 ringgit a tonne and may cross 2,500 ringgit, said Mistry, a director at Gaudier International Ltd. Other traded contracts fell between 7 and 32 ringgit, except for May, which was up 20 ringgit. Overall volume stood at 11,080 lots of 25 tonnes each.
Malaysia's exports picked up in April after months of slowdown because of demand from the world's top importers, China and India. Exports of Malaysian palm oil products in April rose 15 percent to 1,139,535 tonnes from 991,550 shipped in March, according to cargo surveyor Interlake Testing Services.
Another surveyor, Society General de Surveillance, said exports during the period rose 13.3 percent to 1,131,100 tonnes from 998,759 tonnes shipped in March.
Malaysian palm oil stocks are forecast to decline 14.4 percent in April from a month ago as robust growth in exports outpaces an increase in production, a Reuters's poll showed. In the physical market, crude palm oil for May shipment in the southern region was quoted at 2,400/2,410 ringgit a tonne. Deals were done between 2,390 and 2,400 ringgit.