Malaysian palm oil export to rise as price surges to a 16-month high in October

By Kenneth Afor

Malaysia, the second largest world producer of palm, on Thursday predicted that it could see a 16 month-high export of the edible oil in October.

Oil palm fresh fruit bunches harvested from KLK’s estate.

According to its palm oil futures on Thursday, the edible oil benchmark contract for January delivery closed at 2.6 percent higher to 2,382 ringgit ($569.45) on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange.

The commodity reached its highest level at 2,408 ringgit per tonne during the trading session.

Similarly, an industry trader had earlier revealed that “There is a rumour going on that export of Malaysian palm oil had risen 10% in October 1-25 period from the same period in September.”

This will be confirmed on Friday as the Independent inspection company in Malaysia is set to publish the commodity’s export figure from October 1 to 25, 2019.

The surge in prices of the commodity can be traced to the volatility of other rival oils as they compete for a share of global cooking oil market dominance.

Also, as the edible oil gained dominance in the global this could be wakeup call to other producing countries to ramp up their production capacity for a more global competitive market.

Malaysia and other top producers of the edible oil remained adamant despite the European Union (EU) move to remove palm oil from the list of sustainable fuels eligible for trade incentives.

Although, the EU will not stop or prohibit anyone from using palm oil as a biofuel, but they’re just going to stop giving trade incentives; to lower or give no tariffs at all to its importers that they currently give to palm oil imports due to its mistaken designation as a “sustainable” fuel which is not.

Investors trading in other currencies apart from the dollar see the edible oil more expensive for them as trading caps gained by 0.1 percent against the dollar on Thursday.

The Dalian’s January palm oil contract in the last session traded at 1.1 percent on Thursday, while the January delivery contract for soy oil got a boost by 0.7 percent.

Elsewhere, the U.S. soy oil futures on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT) traded green at 0.9 percent on Thursday.