By Kisho Kumari Sucedaram

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 -- The crude palm oil (CPO) futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives is likely to continue a positive momentum next week driven by expectations of higher demand.

Singapore-based Palm Oil Analytics’ owner and co-founder Dr Sathia Varqa said CPO futures was riding at the back of firm soybean oil and palm olein on the Dalian Exchange.

“Soybean oil jumped 2.04 per cent and palm olein was up 1.87 per cent in two consecutive days of triple-digit gain on both the commodities.

“This was one of the best weeks for palm with prices rising RM190 or 6.56 per cent within a week, breaking past the RM3,000 level and gunning for RM3,100 per tonne,” he told Bernama.

He said the CPO benchmark, December 2020 may test RM3,100 before any corrections.

Meanwhile, Interband Group of Companies senior palm oil trader Jim Teh said the CPO futures market may trade lower within the range of RM2,750 to RM2,850 per tonne next week due to profit-taking and technical correction.

However, he said the commodity will still receive a demand from India.

For the week just ended, the CPO futures contract traded higher, tracking the movement of bean oil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade and Dalian Commodity Exchange, and emerging demand for corporate commodities.

It was reported that exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Sept 1-15 rose 12.2 per cent to 779,160 tonnes from 694,402 tonnes shipped during Aug 1-15, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Tuesday.

On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the CPO futures contract for October 2020 increased RM241 to RM3,102 per tonne, RM3,102 per tonne, November 2020 rose RM289 to RM3,100 per tonne, December 2020 gained RM302 to RM3,080 per tonne and January 2021 jumped RM292 to RM3,045 per tonne.

Weekly volume rose to 266,099 lots from 246,479 lots in the previous week, while open interest declined to 260,786 contracts from 233,229 contracts a week earlier.

On the physical market, October South stood at RM3,110 per tonne.

-- BERNAMA