Palm oil rises to 17-month high

Palm oil climbed for a sixth day to a 17-month high on speculation that dry weather will damage soybean crops in Brazil, boosting demand for the tropical oil used in everything from food to fuel.

The contract for May delivery advanced as much as 0.7 per cent to RM2,734 (US$829) a metric tonne on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives, the highest level since September 2012, and was at RM2,716 at 3.11pm in Kuala Lumpur.

Futures rallied 27 per cent from a three-year low of RM2,137 in July on concern dry weather in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for more than 80 per cent of global palm oil supplies, may curb production. Soybeans rallied to the highest since December today as drought scorched fields in Brazil, the world’s biggest exporter of the oilseed, crushed to yield an alternative oil to palm oil.

"Soybean oil is providing a lot of support to palm," said Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, head of trading and hedging strategies at Kaleesuwari Intercontinental Singapore Pte. "Stockpile in Malaysia will come down because of rising exports."

Malaysia’s palm oil production in the first half is seen impacted by a lack of rainfall in some regions in June and July 2013, Hariyanto Wijaya, an analyst at Mandiri Sekuritas, unit of Indonesia’s largest bank by assets, said in an e-mail. Growth in output in Indonesia is not as good as previous years because of a lack of newly matured crop as new planting in 2010 was relatively small, he said.

Palm oil shipments from Malaysia climbed 27 per cent to 595,125 tonnes in first 15 days of the month, compared with the same period in January, SGS (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd said February 17.

Soybean oil for delivery in May fell 0.2 per cent to 40.58 cents a pound the Chicago Board of Trade today after climbing three per cent yesterday to the highest level at close for a most- active contract since December 11. Soybean futures were little changed at US$13.4675 a bushel after jumping to US$13.4925, the highest level since December 10.

Refined palm oil for May delivery rose 1.3 per cent to 6,078 yuan (US$1,001) a tonne on the Dalian Commodity Exchange. Soybean oil climbed 1.4 per cent to 6,798 yuan.-- Bloomberg

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