16/04/2012 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures closed lower on Friday, as traders  took profits from a 13-month high hit earlier in the week, while market players are also keeping a close watch on Malaysian palm exports data due on Monday.

Palm oil futures went as high as 3,628 ringgit on Tuesday, a level not seen since March 8 last year, as industry regulator Malaysian Palm Oil Board data pointed to lower-than-expected stocks and improving exports, painting a bullish picture for the edible oil. But palm oil recorded its first weekly loss at 2.6 percent after five straight weeks of gains, as some traders feared the market had been overbought.

"All this bullish news is not something that people just realised recently, it has been known for a while. Some of it has already been priced in," said Ivy Ng, an analyst with Malaysia's CIMB Investment Bank.

"The market is now looking forward to the next export data to see whether demand's sustainable, and also to see how low the production may look, how low stocks may go and the situation of the soybean crops in South America."

Benchmark June palm oil futures on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange traded 1.4 percent lower to close at 3,510 ringgit ($1,150) per tonne. Traded volumes stood at 35,013 lots of 25 tonnes each, much higher than the usual 25,000 lots. On the technicals front, Reuters market analyst Wang Tao posted a bearish view, saying palm oil would drop to 3,481 ringgit per tonne, based on a wave cycle analysis.

Malaysia's palm oil stocks for March fell to a seven-month low at 1.96 million tonnes, exceeding estimates in a Reuters poll that called for a 3.5 percent drop in palm stocks to 1.99 million tonnes, prompting some traders who worried about the shortfall to buy more crude palm oil.  

Export demand, meanwhile, recorded a monthly gain of close to 9 percent for the first 10 days of April. Cargo surveyors Intertek Testing Services and Societe Generale de Surveillance will release exports for the first 15 days of April on Monday. 

Oil eased towards $121 a barrel on Friday after energy-hungry China's economy expanded at the slowest rate in nearly three years - sparking concern over oil demand growth.

In other vegetable oil markets, the most active U.S. soyoil contract for May lost 0.7 percent while the most active Dalian soyoil September contract inched up 0.7 percent.  

  Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1012 GMT

  Contract        Month    Last   Change     Low    High  Volume
  MY PALM OIL      APR2    3568   -28.00    3568    3600     354
  MY PALM OIL      MAY2    3517   -53.00    3512    3592    2252
  MY PALM OIL      JUN2    3510   -49.00    3505    3583   17305
  CHINA PALM OLEIN SEP2    8980   +58.00    8964    9026  212410
  CHINA SOYOIL     SEP2    9994   +66.00    9984   10046  495936
  CBOT SOY OIL     MAY2   56.80    -0.43   56.79   57.21    7368
  NYMEX CRUDE      MAY2  103.16    -0.48  102.86  103.90   20665

  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
  Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel
  ($1=3.051 ringgit)