Malaysian palm oil up 2.44 percent

Malaysian crude palm oil closed up 2.44 percent, after hitting a five-week-and-a-half week high on strong exports and firmer external markets. A concern over erratic weather in many countries which has damaged grains crop, including vegetable oils as well as firmer crude oil, have offered support to the palm oil market, dealers said.
-- Pakistan will buy a record quantity in July and August helped market: trader The benchmark September contract on Bursa Malaysia's Derivatives Exchange closed up 58 ringgit or 2.44 percent to 2,439 ringgit a tonne after trading as high as 2,445 ringgit a tonne - a level last seen on June 7. Overall volume stood at 30,313 lots of 25 tonnes each, three times the usual 10,000 lots.
"I didn't expect the market to move up that much. But it looks like there is more good news," a trader at a foreign-brokerage firm in Kuala Lumpur said. Cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Service said on Thursday exports of Malaysian palm oil products for July 1-15 rose 11.3 percent to 668,573 tonnes from June 1 to 15, while Societe Generale de Surveillance reported a 16.4 percent increase to 708,384 tonnes in the same period.
Talk in the market that Pakistan will buy a record quantity in July and August for Ramazan - a month-long fast from sunrise to sunset by Muslims - also helped the market to close higher, another trader said.
Based on SGS report, Pakistan bought nearly 20 percent of the palm oil exports in July 1-15 ahead of Ramazan. Pakistan in June cut duties on crude palm oil imports by more than 11 percent, a move which will benefit Malaysia which provides roughly 95 percent of Pakistan's annual total palm oil import. US soyaoil for August delivery was trading up 0.84 percent on Wednesday, while the most active January soyaoil contract on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange rose 0.03 percent.
INDONESIA PALM TRADES: The Jakarta-based PT KPB Nusantara, formerly known as the state marketing centre, sold 7,500 tonnes of crude palm oil offered in an auction on Thursday with top price at 7,248 rupiah ($0.802) per kg, against 7,200 rupiah per kg on previous day.
Producers in Medan, home to Indonesia's main palm oil export port of Belawan, sold crude palm oil with top price at 7,215 rupiah per kg. There was no auction in Medan on Wednesday. Refiners in Jakarta offered refined, bleached, deodorised (RBD) palm oil, used for cooking oil, 7,725 rupiah per kg, against 7,650 rupiah per kg on Wednesday.