Disclaimer: Data may be delayed, incomplete or inaccurate. For education and research only. Use at your own risk. Not financial advice.

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Palm Oil Market Monitor

A monthly palm oil report built only from public data, refreshed automatically. It covers what moved, which factors point up or down, how Malaysian supply and demand stand, what stocks imply for price, and what El Niño means for output over the next nine months.

EditionPast reports and how their calls turned out →Next MPOB report countdown →Rainfall in the palm belts →POGO and the ringgit →

This month's read

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Factor scorecard

Six drivers, each scored from the latest data with fixed rules, so the read is the same whoever runs it.

Prices

World Bank monthly averages in US$ per tonne. The percentile shows where today's price sits within its own last five years: 100 means the highest.

Oil	Latest	On month	On year	3-month trend	5-year percentile

Vegetable oil prices since 2019, US$/t

PalmSoybeanSunflowerRapeseed

How the oils move together

Correlation of monthly price changes over the last five years. 1.00 means they always move together. Crude oil matters through biodiesel demand.

Spreads

Palm competes with soft oils for food demand and with diesel for biodiesel. These spreads show whether palm is priced to win buyers.

Palm minus soybean oil, US$/t

Below zero, palm is cheaper and price-sensitive buyers such as India and Pakistan favour it. The shaded band is the middle half of the last five years.

Palm oil vs crude, US$/t

Palm minus Brent converted to tonnes (7.33 barrels per tonne). The lower it is, the better blending palm into biodiesel pays without subsidy.

Spread, US$/t	Now	Year ago	5-year average	Percentile	Read

Malaysian supply and demand

MPOB monthly balance in thousand tonnes. Stock-to-usage is end-stocks divided by that month's exports plus domestic use. It measures how many months of demand the stocks would cover.

Month	Production	Imports	Exports	Domestic	End-stocks	Stock-to-usage	Production y/y

End-stocks by month, Mt

This yearLast yearPrevious 5-year range

Production by month, Mt

This yearLast yearPrevious 5-year range

Exports, rolling 3-month average, Mt

Stock-to-usage ratio

Above 2 is a heavy market; below 1.2 is tight.

Valuation: what stocks say the price should be

Palm oil prices are regressed on Malaysian stock-to-usage and a time trend since 2014. The gap between the market and the model shows how much the price reflects factors beyond Malaysian stocks.

Price vs stock-based fair value, US$/t

Palm oil priceModel fair value

Premium to fair value, %

Large premiums have tended to close over the following months, through either price or stocks.

El Niño and the output outlook

El Niño brings drier weather to Southeast Asia, and palm trees respond with fewer fruit bunches 6–12 months later. Because that lag is long, today's index already says something about output into next year.

El Niño index (ONI), °C

ONI 9 months earlier vs Malaysian output change

Month	ONI 9 months earlier	Implied output change y/y	Implied production	Same month last year

Sources and method

Prices: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0. El Niño: NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Oceanic Niño Index. Malaysia: Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) monthly supply and demand. Scorecard rules: momentum = 3-month price change beyond ±5%; palm–soy and palm–crude spreads compared with their 5-year middle half; El Niño = the ONI 9 months ago at or above +1.0 (bullish) or at or below −1.0 (bearish); stocks = stock-to-usage against the 5-year average for that calendar month (±15%); valuation = market premium to the model beyond ±15%. Valuation model: ordinary least squares of log price on stock-to-usage and a linear time trend, monthly since 2014. El Niño projection: least squares of production y/y on the ONI 9 months earlier since 2015. The data is rebuilt by a GitHub Actions job on the 5th and 20th of each month. For research and education only. Not trading advice.