Palm oil on the European vegetable oils market dropped sharply on Monday due to weakness in rival oils on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange and lower soyaoil futures in Chicago on talk of Chinese government measures to curb speculation. A strong dollar, which pressures products priced in that currency, also weighed.
Palm oil was offered between $17.50 and $47.50 a tonne down from Friday after Malaysian palm oil futures closed between 121 and 135 ringgit per tonne lower. "On Friday Chicago markets started to drop on talk that weakness in Chinese markets could limit US export demand. That seemed to have spilled over to other markets. The lower prices did not cause much business as players were waiting for the market to bottom out," one broker said.
At 1700 GMT CBOT soyaoil futures were between 0.54 and 0.67 cents per lb led by declines on the Dalian exchange. Chinese soyabean futures tumbled 5 percent on the talk of government measures to crack down on speculation. Lower energy markets also weighed on soyaoil futures. EU rapeoil was quoted between one and eight euros per tonne down from Friday, tracking weakness in CBOT soyaoil and because of lower rapeseed futures. A strong dollar, which underpins products quoted in euros, limited losses.