23/05/2012 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures edged up on Tuesday, as hopes grew that Europe would take steps to tackle its debt crisis, which has triggered a massive selloff in global financial markets.

France's Francois Hollande will push a proposal for mutualising European debt at an informal summit of EU leaders on Wednesday, sending the markets positive signals and easing some investors' fears.

But optimism was muted as most traders chose to remain on the sidelines until more concrete steps to tackle the crisis emerge.  

"The market is still stuck within yesterday's range, it's a continuation of the consolidation phase. No one wants to do anything as market sentiment is still rather mixed," said a dealer with a foreign commodities brokerage in Malaysia.

Benchmark August palm oil futures on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange ended up 0.4 percent higher at 3,110 ringgit ($997) per tonne. 

Traded volumes picked up after the midday break with 27,849 lots of 25 tonnes each, slightly more than the usual 25,000 lots.

Palm oil trading looks neutral in a range of 3,019 to 3,136 ringgit per tonne, said Reuters market analyst Wang Tao based on technical analysis.

Fundamentals remain intact as demand for the edible oil looks healthy, reflected by higher Malaysian palm oil exports for May 1-20 from a month ago.

Exports inched up 2.1 percent to 862,337 tonnes, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said.

Another cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, reported a slightly higher rise of 3.1 percent in exports, a sharp improvement from a drop of 7 percent for the first 15 days of the month.  

On the supply side, dry weather concerns in the United States that threatened to hurt soybean crop reinforced expectations of tighter global oilseed supply. 

Oil prices fell below $109 a barrel on Tuesday as hopes for a cooperation deal over Iran's disputed nuclear programme eased concerns about major oil supply disruptions and as a report predicted more misery for the euro zone.

In other vegetable oil markets, the most active U.S. soyoil contract for July was flat in Asian trade while the most active Dalian soyoil September contract gained 0.2 percent.        

  Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1004 GMT

  Contract        Month    Last   Change     Low    High  Volume
  MY PALM OIL      JUN2    3110   +10.00    3097    3130     568
  MY PALM OIL      JUL2    3114   +12.00    3095    3130    5595
  MY PALM OIL      AUG2    3110   +12.00    3090    3127   17206
  CHINA PALM OLEIN SEP2    8090   +28.00    8056    8118  165582
  CHINA SOYOIL     SEP2    9296   +22.00    9274    9330  333366
  CBOT SOY OIL     JUL2   50.92    +0.00   50.82   51.28    7425
  NYMEX CRUDE      JUN2   92.08    -0.49   92.01   93.01    2745

  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=3.12 ringgit)