KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures dropped to their lowest in three months on Friday, on expectations of rising production and slow export demand.

Benchmark palm oil futures for May delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange were down 2.4 percent at 2,859 ringgit ($642.33) a tonne in the evening. Earlier, they hit 2,851 ringgit, the lowest since Nov 18. Traded volumes stood at 80,151 lots of 25 tonnes each at the end of the trading day.

“Fundamentally production is inching up but exports are uncertain,” said a Kuala Lumpur-based futures trader. “The trading band in the short term should be 2,800 ringgit-3,000 ringgit,” he said, while adding it was too early to determine whether this was the start of a price-declining phase.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2017