Malaysian palm oil futures rose modestly to around MYR 3,940 per tonne, supported by strength in soyoil contracts in the Dalian Exchange and the CBoT. The contracts tried to recover their steepest one-day fall since May 2023 of nearly 4% in the prior session, amid some bargain hunting and reports about dwindling inventory in key buyer China. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) forecasts that palm oil stocks will stay below two million tonnes in Q2 of 2024. Separately Reuters projected that inventories by the end of May stood at 1.75 million metric tons, compared with 1.74 million tons at the end of April. In top importer India, palm oil purchases jumped 12.4% from the prior month in May to a four-month high. Limiting the rise were prices of crude oil that stayed at four-month lows after OPEC+’s plan to loosen its production curbs this year. Meantime, caution grew ahead of export and import data from China later this week and monthly industry figures from MPOB next week.
