Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate: VEGOILS-Palm below one-year high on Chinese demand, 3,500 rgt eyed

Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

VEGOILS-Palm below one-year high on Chinese demand, 3,500 rgt eyed Mar 28th 2012, 05:45 Tweet Share this Email Print Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:45am EDT * China may replenish food stocks, boost demand outlook * Prices up close to 10 pct so far this year * March production could be lower on biological stress (Updates prices, adds details) By Chew Yee Kiat SINGAPORE, March 28 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures edged up on Wednesday, just below a one-year high hit the previous day with dealers betting on larger food imports by China and soybean crop damage in South America to lift the market. Palm oil extended its gains to 9.6 percent so far this year with 3,500 ringgit level in sight although many in the market say the run-up is too speculative. Traders are also bracing for a choppy week as the focus turns to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's quarterly inventory report and planting forecast due on Friday. "Market players are looking out for the USDA reports on Friday. At the same time, food demand from China is quite strong as it is replenishing its stocks," said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Malaysia. By the midday break, benchmark June palm oil futures on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange inched up 0.1 percent at 3,486 ringgit ($1,138) per tonne. Prices touched a more-than-one-year high level of 3,497 ringgit on Tuesday. Traded volumes stood at 7,589 lots of 25 tonnes each, thinner than the usual 12,500 lots as investors were wary ahead of the Friday reports. A healthy demand outlook for palm oil was supported by the latest Malaysian export data, which pointed to a moderate improvement in exports for the first 25 days of March. Traders are expecting March exports to be higher than February, registering a first month-on-month increase since October last year. On top of that, market players are focusing on Malaysia's palm oil supply, as lower crude palm oil production arising from seasonally weaker yields could push prices up further. Analysts said that the effect of biological stress could kick in soon after 12 months of a strong production up-cycle and that could lower palm oil production. Brent crude fell for a second session on Wednesday, breaching $125, on the possibility of a release of strategic oil reserves by the United States even after crude stockpiles in the world's largest oil user rose more than expected last week. In other vegetable oil markets, the most active U.S. soyoil contract for May gained 0.2 percent in Asian trade after China snapped up U.S. soy cargoes following tight supplies in drought-hit south America. The most active September 2012 soyoil contract on China's Dalian Commodity exchange was trading 0.3 percent higher. Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 0528 GMT Contract Month Last Change Low High Volume MY PALM OIL APR2 3515 +3.00 3496 3515 39 MY PALM OIL MAY2 3493 +8.00 3467 3499 1306 MY PALM OIL JUN2 3486 +5.00 3463 3494 4795 CHINA PALM OLEIN SEP2 8752 +20.00 8676 8758 120768 CHINA SOYOIL SEP2 9750 +26.00 9670 9752 289574 CBOT SOY OIL MAY2 55.22 +0.12 54.96 55.27 3836 NYMEX CRUDE MAY2 106.75 -0.58 106.64 106.94 3598 Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel ($1=3.063 ringgit) (Editing by Niluksi Koswanage) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints Comments (0) This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions