KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26: Lower soya oil prices pulled Malaysian crude palm oil futures down marginally on Friday, but the fall was blunted by fears of renewed torrential rain in a key southern growing region, dealers said.

The benchmark third-month April contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange closed down 6 ringgit at 1,874 ringgit ($535) a ton.

Other traded contracts ranged from down 8 ringgit to up 2 ringgit. Overall volume stood at 10,731 lots of 25 tons each.

It's a mixed market toward the weekend, because of fears of weather concerns, the weather department has announced there are going to be torrential rains over the next three days in Johor, one dealer said.

Palm oil often tracks soyabean oil because both commodities find use in products from food and cosmetics to biodiesel.

The Malaysian palm oil market gained 1.3 per cent on Thursday, boosted by India's decision to cut import duties on vegetable oils.

Palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia compete with soybean oil from South America for a share of Indian vegetable oil imports of around 5 million tons a year.

India, the world's third-largest importer of vegetable oils, on Wednesday cut import duties on palm and sunflower oil products in a bid to cool rising inflation.

Import duties on crude palm oil and palm olein have been reduced to 60 per cent and those on refined, bleached, and deodorised palm oil and palm olein were cut to 67.5 per cent.

In the physical crude palm oil market, January shipments were quoted at 1,915/1,920 ringgit a ton. Trades were done between 1,912.50 and 1,920 ringgit a ton.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Jan. 1-25 fell 21 per cent to 716,388 tons from the 903,550 tons shipped between Dec. 1 and 25, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Thursday.

Another cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, said exports fell 19.7 per cent to 733,918 tons, from 914,312 tons shipped between Dec. 1 and 25.—Reuters