20121120 1520 Palm Oil Related News.

VEGOILS-Palm oil slips off 2-week high on slowing exports
Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:50am EST
* Malaysia Nov. 1-20 exports down 3.3 pct m/m -ITS
    * Olam shares halted, media reports say Muddy Waters
questions accounting
    * Olam rejects Muddy Waters accounting claims
    * Palm oil's target of 2,588 ringgit aborted -technicals

 (Updates prices, adds detail)
    By Chew Yee Kiat
    SINGAPORE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures
edged lower on Tuesday, as investors booked profits after the
contract hit a two-week high earlier in the day and as export
demand continued to show signs of slowing.    
    The world's No.2 palm producer exported 1.02 million tonnes
of palm products for Nov. 1-20, down 3.3 percent from 1.06
million tonnes a month ago, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing
Services said on Tuesday.
    Market players were hoping for higher exports to ease record
stocks, which hit 2.51 million tonnes in October. Another cargo
surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance will release its
export data later in the day.
    "Traders were pretty hopeful for positive export data,
although this decline is not really that significant," said Ker
Chung Yang, investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
    "Market participants are also anxious as they wait for the
outcome of the European financial meeting," he added, referring
to a gathering later on Tuesday where euro zone finance
ministers are expected to give a tentative go-ahead for the
disbursement of 44 billion euros in emergency loans to
Greece.
    By the midday break, the benchmark February contract
 on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange had lost 0.3
percent to 2,452 ringgit ($801) per tonne. Prices earlier
touched 2,485 ringgit, the highest since Nov. 2.
    Total traded volumes stood at 15,015 lots of 25 tonnes each,
higher than the usual 12,500 lots.  
    Technicals showed a bullish palm oil target of 2,588 ringgit
had been aborted, said Reuters market analyst Wang Tao.

    Singapore commodities firm Olam International Ltd
asked for its shares to be halted from trading on Tuesday, after
media reports quoted short-seller Muddy Waters' Carson Block as
saying he was betting against the company after questioning its
accounting practices.
    The company defended itself against Muddy Waters, saying the
short-seller had made "baseless and unsubstantiated assertions".
   
    In related markets, Brent crude held steady above $111 a
barrel on Tuesday, less than a dollar off a one-month top hit in
the previous session, on hopes a U.S. budget crisis will be
averted and on supply worries triggered by tension in the Middle
East.
    In other vegetable oil markets, U.S. soyoil for December
delivery edged 0.2 percent lower in early Asian trade.
The most active May 2013 soybean oil contract on the
Dalian Commodity Exchange had gained 0.3 percent by the midday
break.