Malaysian palm oil futures climbed to a near two-week high on Tuesday after firm export data fuelled investor hopes that a recovery in global demand for the tropical oil will underpin prices. Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for the first half of April rose 8.6 percent to 521,847 tonnes compared with a month earlier, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said, as demand from top consumers India and China picked up.
Another cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance showed exports for the same period rose 6.7 percent to 500,057 tonnes. The benchmark June contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange touched 2,669 ringgit on Tuesday, its highest since April 2, before settling at 2,665 ringgit ($822) per tonne by day's close, a 1.1 percent rise.
The Kuala Lumpur-based trader added that prices of refined palm olein could climb higher in the coming months as prices of crude palm oil pick up. Refined, bleached and deodorised palm olein was trading at $860 on Tuesday. Total traded volume stood at 34,660 lots of 25 tonnes, just below the average 35,000 lots. Technicals, however, were bearish. Malaysian palm oil is expected to revisit its April 11 low of 2,572 ringgit per tonne, as it could have completed a rebound from this level, said Reuters market analyst Wang Tao.
India's palm imports rose 35 percent in March from a month ago, data from the Solvent Extractors' Association showed on Tuesday, with purchases from the top edible oil buyer expected to surge in May as demands builds up before Ramadan. Malaysia, the world's second-largest palm oil producer, has kept its crude palm oil export tax for May at 5.5 percent, the same as a month ago, according to a government circular. In competing vegetable oil markets, the US soyoil contract for May slipped 0.1 percent in late Asian trade, while the most active September soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodities Exchange fell 0.8 percent.
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