Palm opens lower, tracking Dalian’s soyoil

Malaysian palm oil futures fell for the fourth consecutive session on Thursday as weaker Dalian soyoil weighed on the market.

The benchmark palm oil contract for January delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange lost 30 ringgit, or 0.67 per cent, to 4,426 ringgit (US$1,047.82) a metric ton in early trade.

Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract lost 0.51 per cent, while its palm oil contract shed 1.26 per cent. Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade were up 0.22 per cent.

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

Indonesia’s biodiesel consumption from January to September stood at 10.57 million kilolitres, its energy minister Bahlil Lahadalia said on Wednesday, up nearly 10 per cent from 9.61 million kilolitres a year earlier.

Oil prices rose by more than US$1 per barrel on Thursday, extending gains from the previous session, after the United States imposed sanctions on Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil over the Ukraine war.

Stronger crude oil futures make palm a more attractive option for biodiesel feedstock.

The ringgit, palm’s currency of trade, weakened 0.02 per cent against the dollar. A weaker ringgit would make the commodity less expensive for buyers holding foreign currencies.

Asian stocks fell for a second day on Thursday as lacklustre earnings reports from tech megacap stocks deepened a selloff on Wall Street, while US sanctions against Russia and China revived fears around geopolitics.

Tags: Malaysia, palm oil, futures, benchmark contract, soyoil