07/02/2012 (Business Times) - Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (BMD) which intends to offer innovative options for palm oil futures, plans to introduce dollar-denominated palm olein futures contracts sometime this year.

"With this offering, refineries can now hedge the refining margin between crude palm oil (CPO) and palm olein," said Bursa Malaysia Bhd's Chairman Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Haji Abdullah in the opening address at the Palm & Lauric Oils Conference 2012 today.

He said the negotiated large trade facility, currently used in the CPO futures (FCPO) markets would also be made available for this contract.

FCPO contracts volume hit a new high last September with a total of 4.07 million contracts traded, the highest number of contracts ever traded annually since 1980.

Mohamed Dzaiddin said there was a need now to manage price risk as well as to gain leveraged exposure to movements in CPO prices following increased volatility of commodities due to recent global events. - Bernama