OREANDA-NEWS. Malaysian palm oil futures fell to a 2-week low on Tuesday, stretching its losing streak into a fifth day as disappointing exports in early March, alongside losses in crude and soy markets, piled pressure onto the benchmark contract.

Cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services showed that Malaysian palm oil shipments for March 1-10 fell 12.3 percent to 262,168 tonnes compared with the similar period a month ago, as Europe and China slashed imports of the tropical oil.

"During the Palm Oil Conference everyone was talking about good exports in March, but this is disappointing," said a trader with a foreign commodities firm in Kuala Lumpur.

"The pressure is definitely coming from exports...26,000 tonnes a day is very, very low."

Another cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance showed that exports for the same period slid 19.3 percent.

The benchmark May contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange hit its lowest since Feb. 24 at 2,221 ringgit in the afternoon session, before settling 1.5 percent lower at 2,238 ringgit (\$605) a tonne by Tuesday's close - marking a fifth day of losses.

Total traded volume stood at 60,412 lots of 25 tonnes, much higher than the usual 35,000 lots.

Malaysian Palm Oil Board data, released after the midday break, showed that Malaysian palm oil stocks hit a seven-month low of 1.74 million tonnes at the end of February. But the fall was smaller than estimates for inventories to ease to 1.67 million tonnes.

Exports for the month plunged to their weakest in nearly eight years, the MPOB said.

"Overall, the trend is weak," said a second Kuala Lumpur-based trader. "The stocks are unlikely to hit 1.5 million tonnes...plus demand took a hit in February, and now March," the trader added.

Palm gained little respite from the slide in the ringgit against the dollar, which scored near 12-year highs on Tuesday and mounted pressure on most emerging Asian currencies.

A weaker ringgit that touched 3.7025, its lowest since March 2009, typically makes the ringgit-priced feedstock cheaper for overseas buyers. But a strong dollar also hurt oil prices, which in turn weighed on palm.

Brent crude futures dipped below \$58 a barrel on Tuesday as the dollar scaled multi-year highs and the oil market remained hobbled by oversupply and weak demand.

In vegetable oil markets, the most active May soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 0.8 percent in late Asian trade. The US soyoil contract for May dropped 0.7 percent.