08/11/2022 (The Edge Markets), Kuala Lumpur - Crude palm oil (CPO) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives retreated to end easier following concerns about China demand.

A trader said Covid-19 restrictions in the world’s largest vegetable oil consumer continued to spark worries among traders.

“The domestic performance also mirrored weaker oil market and soybean oil prices on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange ahead of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) monthly supply-and-demand reports due mid-this week,” the trader told Bernama.

It was reported China’s soy imports fell 19% in October year-on-year to 4.14 million tonnes, the lowest for any month since 2014.

At the close, contracts for November 2022 decreased by RM6 to RM4,254 a tonne, December 2022 dropped RM63 to RM4,280 a tonne and January 2023 declined RM72 to RM4,361 a tonne.

February 2023 contracts eased RM81 to RM4,395 a tonne, March 2023 slipped RM79 to RM4,395 and April 2023 fell RM73 to RM4,374 a tonne.

Total volume, however, grew to 63,820 lots from 45,999 lots on Monday while open interest widened to 259,219 contracts from 242,562 contracts previously.

The physical CPO price for November South was reduced by RM40 to RM4,230 a tonne.

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/concerns-about-china-demand-drags-cpo-futures-lower