Malaysian palm oil futures have reached a seven-month low due to competition in the vegetable oil market.

For the second day in a row, futures for Malaysian palm oil continued to decline and closed at the lowest level in the last seven months. This was due to the weakness of competing palm oil contracts in Dalian and Chicago.

On the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange, the benchmark contract for palm oil delivery in October closed down 80 ringgit or 2.11%, bringing its price to 3707 ringgit (829.31 US dollars) per ton. This is the lowest level since January 8th.

On Monday, this contract fell by more than 3%.

Futures for Malaysian palm oil opened lower after a sharp sell-off of soybean oil on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and rapeseed futures on Euronext during the night, as well as Chinese vegetable oil futures in the Asian hours on Tuesday. Anilkumar Bagani, head of commodity research at Sunvin Group, based in Mumbai, reported this.

“However, some strengthening of the Malaysian ringgit and the recovery of energy prices and Asian stock markets have brought some confidence regarding palm oil,” Bagani noted.

“Futures are recovering from early sales but are still in negative territory.”

The most active soybean oil contract in Dalian fell by 2.42%, while the CPO palm oil contract fell by 3.31%. Soybean oil prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange decreased by 2.31%.

Pricing for palm oil moves in line with prices of competing products as they compete for a global market share of vegetable oils.

The Malaysian ringgit weakened by 1.13% against the dollar, making the commodity cheaper for buyers using foreign currency.

Oil prices failed to rise significantly on Tuesday amid unstable trading conditions due to concerns about escalating conflict in the Middle East and a decrease in output at Libya's largest oil field Sharara, which increased the likelihood of supply shortages.

According to a Reuters survey, it is expected that palm oil reserves in Malaysia will decline for the first time in July after three consecutive months of growth.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Council, the industry's regulatory body, plans to release monthly palm oil data on August 12th.