Indonesian palm oil prices were mixed on Wednesday, with a fall in Malaysian palm oil futures discouraging strong position-taking ahead a long holiday weekend. The state marketing centre in Jakarta did not hold a crude palm oil auction on Wednesday. There will be no more crude palm oil auctions until Monday due to religious holidays on Thursday and Friday.
On Tuesday, the centre, which sells crude palm oil from the state plantations, failed to sell 7,500 tonnes of the vegetable oil it offered in auctions because of low bids. In North Sumatra's Medan, crude palm oil was traded at 8,680 rupiah ($0.942) a kg, still in the range of Tuesday's prices of 8,410-8,990 rupiah a kg.
"Players were not so enthusiastic today since Malaysia's crude palm oil futures dropped sharply. Moreover, we are going to have a long holiday weekend," said a crude palm oil trader in Medan, the country's key port for palm oil exports.
Malaysian crude palm oil futures slid another 4 percent on Wednesday as demand remained weak despite lower prices, pushing down vegetable oils across Asia.
The benchmark June contracts on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell as much as 154 ringgit, or 4.5 percent, to 3,296 ringgit ($1,041) a tonne. The contract ended the session down 98 ringgit at 3,352 ringgit a tonne. While crude palm oil prices stayed in the range, the price of refined, bleached, deodorised (RBD) palm olein used as cooking oil was quoted at 9,796 rupiah a kilogram, dropping from 10,200 rupiah a kg on Tuesday.
"We didn't trade today since buyers were afraid that the export tax may be raised again," a cooking oil dealer in Jakarta said. On the export front, there was no price quotation available for crude palm oil, reflecting sluggish trading interest.
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