Palm Oil
Bursa Malaysia
The world's biggest vegetable oil, priced in ringgit in Kuala Lumpur and burned increasingly as Indonesian biodiesel.
Top Producers
share of 2025/26 production
Top Consumers
share of 2025/26 consumption (food plus biodiesel)
Main Uses
global palm oil use by category, 2025/26
Top Exporters
share of 2025/26 palm oil exports
Top Importers
share of 2025/26 palm oil imports
World production
roughly 80 million tonnes
as of 2025
Indonesia plus Malaysia share
roughly 85 percent
as of 2025
Record price
above MYR 7,000 per tonne (March-April 2022)
as of 2025
Indonesian biodiesel blend
B40 from January 2025
as of 2025
Largest importer
India
as of 2025
Palm oil is the most produced and most traded vegetable oil on earth, roughly 80 million tonnes a year, pressed from the fruit of oil palms that yield several times more oil per hectare than any annual oilseed crop. Supply is a duopoly: Indonesia produces roughly 46 to 48 million tonnes and Malaysia roughly 19 million tonnes, together about 85 percent of world output. The price benchmark is the Bursa Malaysia crude palm oil future, FCPO, 25 tonnes quoted in Malaysian ringgit per tonne with physical delivery into Malaysian port tank installations, making it the rare world benchmark denominated in neither dollars nor euros. India is the largest import buyer, followed by China, the EU, and Pakistan, and palm's discount or premium to soybean oil steers millions of tonnes of switching demand each year.
Energy policy is eating the market. Indonesia's biodiesel mandate, raised to B40 (a 40 percent palm blend in diesel) from January 2025 with ambitions toward B50, diverts well over 13 million tonnes of palm oil a year into domestic fuel, structurally shrinking the exportable surplus of the world's largest producer. The market's great modern shock combined politics and food inflation: in April 2022, with sunflower oil cut off by the war in Ukraine, Indonesia abruptly banned palm exports to protect domestic cooking-oil prices, and FCPO spiked above MYR 7,000 per tonne. The ban relented within a month but established export policy as a permanent risk premium. The other long-term constraints are agronomic and regulatory: aging plantations and chronically slow replanting cap output growth, labor shortages persist in Malaysia, and the EU deforestation regulation conditions access to the European market on proof that oil comes from land not deforested after 2020.
How It Trades
| Venue | Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (Kuala Lumpur) |
| Benchmark contract | Crude Palm Oil futures (FCPO) |
| Contract size | 25 tonnes |
| Price terms | Malaysian ringgit per tonne |
| Settlement | Physical delivery of crude palm oil into approved port tank installations in Malaysia |
| Typical curve | Seasonal: production peaks September through November pressure nearby months; inverts on export bans and biodiesel demand surges |
| Liquidity | The world vegetable-oil benchmark; deep commercial participation from plantations, refiners, and Indian and Chinese buyers, with Dalian palm olein futures as the China-side satellite |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global palm oil futures volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- Indonesia: roughly 46 to 48 million tonnes, well over half of world output
- Malaysia: roughly 19 million tonnes
- Thailand: roughly 3.5 million tonnes
- Colombia: roughly 2 million tonnes
- Nigeria and other West African producers: roughly 1.5 million tonnes combined
Output growth has stalled: aging trees, slow replanting, and limits on new plantation land make Indonesian biodiesel policy the dominant swing on exportable supply.
Top consumers
- Indonesia (food plus the B40 biodiesel program)
- India (largest importer)
- China
- European Union (declining on deforestation policy)
- Pakistan and Bangladesh
Major uses
- Cooking oil and food manufacturing (roughly two thirds of use)
- Biodiesel, dominated by Indonesia's blending mandate
- Oleochemicals: soaps, detergents, cosmetics
- Palm kernel oil co-product for specialty fats
What Moves the Price
- Indonesian biodiesel mandates and export levy policy
- Monthly Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) production, export, and stock data
- The spread to soybean and sunflower oil, which drives importer switching
- Indian import duties and festival-season buying
- ENSO cycles: El Nino drought cuts yields with a lag of six to twelve months
- The ringgit exchange rate, since the contract is MYR-denominated
- EU deforestation regulation and Western demand attrition
- Crude oil prices, which set biodiesel blending economics
Moments That Made the Market
1980
Kuala Lumpur lists the world's first crude palm oil futures, the ancestor of FCPO.
2008
Palm joins the food-crisis spike, then crashes by more than half in the financial crisis.
2015
Severe El Nino haze and drought across Borneo and Sumatra cut yields into 2016.
2020
Indonesia begins its B30 biodiesel era, structurally tightening exportable supply.
2022
Indonesia bans palm exports in April amid the Ukraine war oil shock; FCPO spikes above MYR 7,000 per tonne.
2025
Indonesia implements B40 blending; the EU deforestation regulation's entry into force reshapes trade documentation.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- Indonesia's biodiesel program turned the largest exporter into its own largest customer, shrinking the world's exportable surplus.
- Export bans and levies became routine Indonesian policy tools after April 2022.
- Plantation expansion stopped being the growth engine: aging trees and deforestation moratoria capped supply growth.
- The EU pivoted from top-three buyer to shrinking, compliance-heavy market under deforestation rules.
- Palm's linkage to crude oil tightened through biodiesel, aligning it with the energy complex alongside soybean oil.