Malaysia palm oil stocks seen rising for second straight month in May

Malaysia’s palm oil inventories inched higher for a second consecutive month in May, underpinned by higher output despite a recovery in exports.

Palm oil stocks in the world’s second-biggest producer were seen at 1.75 million metric tons, up 0.39% from April, according to the median estimate of 10 traders.

Official data for April showed Malaysia’s palm oil stocks rose 1.85% from the previous month to 1.74 million metric tons.

Exports of palm oil products were estimated to have jumped by 14.32% in the same period to 1.41 million tons due to recovery in palm’s competitive price to soybean oil in May.

Meanwhile, crude palm oil (CPO) output was seen rising for third consecutive month to 1.65 million tons, a 9.9% increase month-on-month. MYPOMP-CPOTT

“Beneficial rainfall, relatively higher labour productivity to last year, and extended strong yield growth from April is set to deliver a strong production month in May,” said Sathia Varqa, co-founder of Singapore-based Palm Oil Analytics.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) is scheduled to release its monthly palm oil data on June 10.

Breakdown of May estimates (in metric tons):

* Official stocks of 1,744,459 tons in April plus the above estimated output and imports yield a total May supply of 3,431,527 tons. Based on the median of exports and closing stocks estimate, Malaysia’s domestic consumption in May is estimated to be 269,297 tons.

Tags: inventories, exports, soybean oil, Crude palm oil, Malaysia, palm oil, yield, stocks, output