05/10/2009 (Business Times) - Palm oil may be higher next year than previously forecast as stockpiles decline and the dollar weakens, lifting demand, Ben Santoso, a plantation analyst at DBS Vickers Securities (Singapore) Pte Ldt, said in a report.

Prices of the world’s cheapest edible oil may average RM2,380 (US$688) a ton, compared with a previous estimate of RM2,300, “in anticipation of tighter edible oils inventory and to impute changes to our macro-economic assumptions, including a weaker dollar and higher crude oil prices,” Santoso said in the report emailed today.

The commodity has averaged RM2,195 this year on the Malaysian Derivatives Exchange.