Malaysian palm oil snaps seven-day decline on exports surge

Malaysian palm oil futures closed higher on Monday, after falling for the last seven consecutive trading days, but weaker rival soyoil capped gains. The benchmark palm oil contract for June delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange ended up 65 ringgit, or 1.9%, to 3,577 ringgit ($809.46) a tonne. Palm oil attempted to recover some of the massive losses from last week, but there was little momentum to sustain the prices, said Sathia Varqa, co-founder of Singapore-based Palm Oil Analytics. “Sentiments are still bogged down by weakness in related vegetable oils,” he said. Maybank Investment Banking Group reported that crude palm oil futures are in backwardation, as prices are expected to fall ahead of mid-year seasonal output recovery. Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for March 1-25 rose between 11.4% and 19.8% from a month earlier, cargo surveyors said on Saturday. Indonesia shipped 2.95 million tonnes of palm oil in January, up 35.2% from a year earlier, the ...