By Mei Mei Chu
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Malaysian palm oil futures fell as much as 3% on Thursday as traders booked profits after prices hit an all-time high in the previous session, with weaker rival oils in Dalian also denting sentiment.
The benchmark palm oil contract FCPOc3 for December delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange slid 126 ringgit, or 2.51%, to 4,895 ringgit ($1,178.10) a tonne by the midday break.
Palm had gained 3.4% in the previous session, crossing the 5,000 ringgit per tonne mark, after top buyer India slashed imports taxes on crude and refined varieties of palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil ahead of key festivals to cool near-record price rises.
“The revised import duties put crude palm oil (CPO) at a disadvantage against sunflower oil and soybean oil as the import duty on CPO of 8.25% is higher than crude soybean oil and crude sunflower oil of 5.5%,” Ivy Ng, regional head of plantations research at CGS-CIMB Research, wrote in a note.
“Exporters are already seeing the effect of high palm oil prices on demand as customers are relunctant to buy at these prices,” said Mohsin Mohammad, director at Selangor-based cooking oil exporter Sarafiah Natural Resources.
Malaysia has maintained its November export tax for crude palm oil at 8% but increased the reference price.
The world’s biggest palm oil exporter, Indonesia, aims to stop exporting the crude form of the vegetable oil in the future in favour of refined products, President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday.
Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract DBYcv1 fell 0.6%, while its palm oil contract DCPcv1 eased 0.4%. Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade BOcv1 were up 0.3%.
Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
($1 = 4.1550 ringgit)
(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu; Editing by Ramakrishnan M. and Krishna Chandra Eluri)
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