Crude palm oil (CPO) futures on Bursa Derivatives closed at a record yesterday, after reports by independent cargo surveyors showed that exports continued to climb in May despite rising prices.

Sentiment was also boosted by soybean oil?s strong performance in overnight trading in

Chicago.The CPO third-month futures, the most heavily-traded contract, surged RM81, or 3.2%, to RM2,581 a tonne. The benchmark contract has risen 31% year-to-date.The closing price was RM9 shy of the all-time high of RM2,590 reached in intra-day trading on Tuesday.

Yesterday, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said exports in May climbed 3.4% to 1.178 million tonnes from 1.139 million in April.

Another major cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, said the May exports were up 4.7% to 1.184 million tonnes from 1.131 million in the previous month.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Board is expected to release its month-end statistics for May in two weeks.

Meanwhile, soybean oil futures hit 36 US cents a pound on the Chicago Board of Trade yesterday ? its highest level since May 1984.

At yesterday’s record closing, the CPO price is equivalent to about 34.45 US cents a pound.

Soybean oil and palm oil are widely used in food applications to make butter and cooking oil. They can also be blended with petroleum to produce biodiesel.

Traditionally, CPO is traded at a discount to soybean oil, but the gap has narrowed over the past year on concerns about edible oil supply shortage worldwide.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Crude Palm Oil Futures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.