(Recasts, adds details throughout)
    * Palm buyers seen delaying purchases
    * Palm oil's target at 2,214 ringgit aborted
    * Palm prices may hit 2,200 rgt by end-June-analyst

17/04/2015 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures ended lower for the first time in five days on Thursday as the contract succumbed to the strong ringgit and concerns that demand in April would be weaker than anticipated.

The Malaysian currency the pricing unit for the  benchmark palm contract, jumped as much as 1.5 percent to 3.6460 per dollar on Thursday, making the feedstock more expensive for overseas buyers.

Export demand in April, already sluggish in the first half of the month, may worsen as India and China look to delay purchases to next month to enjoy a duty-free policy on crude palm shipments from Malaysia, industry players said. 

"Prices are down because of the strong ringgit and demand worries," said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur. "Buyers will wait for next month's zero tax."

The benchmark July contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives ended 0.2 percent lower at 2,147 ringgit ($588) by Thursday's close, reversing gains in the morning session. 

Total traded volume stood at 45,385 lots of 25 tonnes, well above the usual 35,000 lots.

The contract had notched up a four-day winning streak since Friday, lifted by a planned Indonesian levy that helped boost confidence that the producer would carry out its ambitious biofuel plans and soak up excess supplies of palm in the market.

The levy of $50/tonne on any crude palm exports shipped at a zero export tax rate was signed by the Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro on Tuesday and will come into effect once signed by President Joko Widodo, which Chief Economics Minister Sofyan Djalil said would take place this week.

Palm oil prices will likely trade at 2,200 ringgit by end-June, leading analyst Thomas Mielke said on Thursday, and may rise to 2,300 ringgit by end-2015, partly supported by weaker output of rival oils.

However, prices would continue to hold a fairly narrow range and were unlikely to break below 2,000 ringgit, Mielke, editor of Hamburg-based newsletter Oil World, said at an industry seminar in Malaysia.

At the same seminar, chairman of commodities consultancy LMC International James Fry provided a conflicting view, expecting stronger crude palm oil output coupled with poor biodiesel demand to drive up stocks in the second half of the year, weighing on prices.

In other markets, oil rose more than 3 percent on Thursday, pushing Brent crude to a 2015 high above $63 per barrel on increasing evidence that U.S. production is peaking, balancing a market that has been in heavy oversupply for more than a year.

The U.S. soyoil May contract fell 0.2 percent in late Asian trade, while the most active September soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange gained 1.1 percent. 

  Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1039 GMT

                                                                                 

  Contract        Month    Last   Change     Low    High  Volume

  MY PALM OIL      MAY5    2175    +0.00    2167    2195     484

  MY PALM OIL      JUN5    2155    -5.00    2149    2185   10981

  MY PALM OIL      JUL5    2147    -4.00    2137    2177   21772

  CHINA PALM OLEIN SEP5    4762   +62.00    4690    4802  886354

  CHINA SOYOIL     SEP5    5584   +58.00    5542    5642 1135694

  CBOT SOY OIL     MAY5   31.75    -2.50   31.72   32.00    5162

  INDIA PALM OIL   APR5  435.50    -2.50  435.00  439.40     365

  INDIA SOYOIL     APR5  604.50    -1.15  603.70  606.30    1020

  NYMEX CRUDE      MAY5   55.46    -0.93   55.29   56.54   37314

                                                                                                   

  Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne

  CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound

  Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne

  India soy oil in Indian rupee per 10 kg

  Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel

($1 = 3.6540 ringgit)

($1 = 6.1967 Chinese yuan)