KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian crude palm oil (CPO) stocks for December 2021 fell 11.89% to 830,339 tonnes from 942,354 tonnes in the previous month on lower production and export, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) said.

       The world’s second-largest palm oil producer’s end-December processed palm oil inventory also declined 13.95% month-on-month to 752,701 tonnes from 874,707 tonnes, Bernama reported. The MPOB said overall, stocks slipped 12.88% to 1.58 million tonnes from 1.82 million tonnes previously. This was much lower compared to a Reuters’ poll estimating a stockpile of 1.73 million tonnes.

       “It is a bullish report, we have a record local usage added with poor production numbers aggravated by flooding mainly in the east coast (of Malaysia),” Paramalingam Supramaniam, director at Selangor-based brokerage Pelindung Bestari, told Reuters.

       “Given the very tight inventories with lower production expected in February, it is likely the supply chain coverage will be hedged higher as restocking and Ramadan demand takes place,” Marcello Cultrera, institutional sales manager and broker at Phillip Futures in Kuala Lumpur, added.

       As for production, CPO output decreased 11.26% to 1.45 million tonnes from 1.63 million tonnes in November. Palm kernel output dropped 9.8% to 350,493 tonnes from 388,562 tonnes in the preceding month, the board said. — Bernama