Malaysian palm oil futures inched higher on Monday after two consecutive sessions of losses, as a weaker ringgit made the vegetable oil cheaper for foreign currency holders and Chicago soyoil lent support.

The benchmark palm oil contract FCPO1! for March delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange gained 21 ringgit, or 0.53%, to 4,012 ringgit ($985.75) a metric ton. The contract dropped 2.42% last week.
“Bursa Malaysia CPO futures opened higher following gains in Chicago soyoil on Friday and in early Asian hours, coupled with a weaker ringgit and some glimpse of renewed demand from India this morning,” said Anilkumar Bagani, commodity research head at Sunvin Group, a Mumbai-based brokerage.

However, expectations of higher 2025-end Malaysian palm oil stocks capped the gains in prices, he said.

Malaysia’s December palm oil inventories are expected to have risen to their highest level in almost seven years, as strong monthly production overpowered a modest improvement in exports, a Reuters survey showed on Monday.

Indonesia exported 20.85 million tons of crude and refined palm oil in the January-to-November period of last year, up 4.32% by volume from the same period a year earlier, the statistics bureau said on Monday.

Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract (DBYcv1) was down 0.13%, while its palm oil contract CPO1! fell 1.44%.

Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade (BOc2) gained 0.22%

Palm oil tracks the price movements of rival edible oils as it competes for a share of the global vegetable oils market.

The ringgit, palm oil’s currency of trade, weakened 0.44% against the U.S. dollar.

India’s palm oil imports fell to an eight-month low in December, weighed down by weaker winter demand and as refiners increased purchases of rival oils such as soyoil and sunflower oil, according to five dealers.
Source: Reuters