KUALA LUMPUR, June 10: Malaysian crude palm oil futures fell 3.6 per cent on Tuesday as dismal overseas demand and a build-up in supplies at home dragged down the market from near-two week highs hit the day before.

And weaker US soyaoil and crude oil markets helped push the market lower, placing it more than 21 per cent off an historic high of 4,486 ringgit hit in early March.

The benchmark August contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange settled down 130 ringgit at 3,530 ringgit ($1,081) per ton.

Bearish domestic fundamentals appeared at a time when external influences like crude oil and soyaoil appear to be consolidating, said a trader with a local brokerage. “It was bad luck for palm futures at the time. Other traded months fell between 56 and 130 ringgit. Overall volumes dropped to 7,144 lots of 25 tons each from the usual 10,000 lots.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for June 1-10 fell 12 per cent to 360,000 tons from 409,238 tons shipped between May 1-10, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Service said on Tuesday Another surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, said palm oil shipments for the same period fell 4.3 per cent to 389,300 tons.

Malaysia’s crude palm oil stocks rose 6.9 per cent to 1,913,360 tons in May, from a revised 1,789,799 tons in April, official crop agency Malaysian Palm Oil Board said.

The jump in stocks beat market forecasts of a 0.6 per cent rise. Oil pared losses on Tuesday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its forecast for oil demand growth to the slowest rate since 2002, but also lowered its expectations for supply growth.

Chicago Board of Trade soyaoil for July delivery fell 0.4 per cent in Asian trade on Tuesday, extending modest losses overnight. But the most-active September soyaoil contract on China’s Dalian Exchange rose 1.1 per cent.

In Malaysia’s cash market, crude palm oil for June and July shipments in the southern region were quoted at 3,600/3,650 ringgit. Trades were done at 3,560 ringgit.—Reuters