KUALA LUMPUR (April 3): The crude palm oil (CPO) futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives continued its rally on Wednesday to close above RM4,400 a tonne following a surge in crude oil prices, said a dealer.

Palm oil trader David Ng said the expectation of better demand in coming weeks was also seen as lifting market sentiment.

“We see support at RM4,300 a tonne and resistance at RM4,500 a tonne,” he told Bernama.

At the time of writing, Brent crude oil rose 1.01% to US$89.92 per barrel, while the West Texas Intermediate climbed 1.02% to US$86.02 per barrel.

Mumbai-based Sunvin Group commodity research head Anilkumar Bagani said CPO futures were seen extending its bullish run to eventually cross the psychological resistance following strength in the Chinese vegetable oil futures in Asian hours and Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) soyabean oil’s performance overnight.

He said the strong CPO fund activity, expectations of easing Malaysian palm oil inventories and a lower-than-expected production growth had been seen supporting palm oil. A strong export performance in March added to the bullish sentiment.

At the close, the spot month April 2024 contract jumped RM115 to RM4,579 a tonne, May 2024 rose RM84 to RM4,479 a tonne, June 2024 increased RM95 to RM4,407 a tonne, and July 2024 gained RM107 to RM4,336 a tonne.

August 2024 and September 2024 added RM117 each to RM4,261 a tonne and RM4,197 a tonne, respectively.

Total volume grew to 141,691 lots from Tuesday’s 64,463 lots, while open interest widened to 283,241 contracts from 282,362 contracts previously.

The physical CPO price for April South rose RM110 to RM4,580 a tonne from RM4,470 a tonne on Tuesday.