Malaysia's palm stocks to ease in 2014, 2015 as demand picks up -MPOB

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Malaysian palm oil stocks could drop 14 percent by the end of 2014 from 2.09 million at the end of last month, a senior official of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) said, as export demand and domestic food and fuel needs pick up...Inventories are seen drawing down to 1.8 million tonnes by the end of the year, and are likely to end 2015 at 1.7 million tonnes, Ramli Abdullah, the head of the MPOB's economic unit, told an industry meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Friday...The industry regulator had previously pegged stocks to range between 1.6 million and 1.8 million tonnes at the end of 2014, lower than the 1.99 million tonnes piled up at the end of 2013.

Output in Malaysia is expected to rise to 20.5 million tonnes in 2015, Ramli said, in the absence of extreme weather that could hurt yields...Malaysia produced 14.66 million tonnes of crude palm oil between January and September, up 7 percent from a year earlier.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil were seen at 17.9 million tonnes in 2014, below forecasts for 18.5 million, but are expected to rise to 18.2 million in 2015...Malaysia exported 18.15 million tonnes of palm oil in 2013, with China, India, Pakistan and Europe taking the bulk of shipments.

Source: Reuters