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VEGOILS-Palm oil ends lower on stuttering February demand

(Update throughout, adds trader quote)

* Malaysia Feb 1-10 palm exports fall 4 pct m/m -SGS

* Malaysia's Jan palm stocks down 12.2 pct m/m to 1.77 mln T

-MPOB

* Palm oil may drop to 2,284 ringgit -technicals

By Anuradha Raghu

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures

ended lower on Tuesday, giving up gains in the earlier session

as traders fretted about poor appetite for the tropical oil,

although tighter stocks in the world's No.2 grower curbed

losses.

Despite the weak ringgit, which has made palm oil cheaper

for overseas buyers, shipments were sluggish, particularly to

top edible oil consumers India and China, cargo surveyor data

showed.

Intertek Testing Services reported that Malaysian palm

exports fell 16 percent between Feb. 1-10 from the same period

in January. Another surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance

showed shipments dropped to 307,122 tonnes.

"Exports for the first 10 days of February is not good,"

said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala

Lumpur "Even with the weak ringgit, you've still got poor

demand. So the market is going for a further correction."

The benchmark April contract had dropped 0.7

percent to 2,300 ringgit($643) per tonne by Tuesday's close,

near the lower end of the day's trading range of 2,344-2,294

ringgit.

Total traded volume stood at 52,742 lots of 25 tonnes, above

the usual 35,000 lots.

Official data from industry regulator the MPOB, released

after the midday break, showed Malaysian inventories at their

lowest in six months after flooding in Borneo helped to reduce

overall output to their weakest since February 2011.

While the level of stocks was largely in line with market

estimates, the drop in output was steeper, with January palm

crude oil production at only 1.16 million tonnes versus a

Reuters poll of 1.19 million tonnes.

The Malaysian ringgit fell as much as 0.6 percent

against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday to trade at 3.5830, on

growing pessimism amid worries about a possible downgrade in the

country's sovereign ratings.

Technicals showed that palm oil may drop to 2,284 ringgit,

as its correction triggered by a resistance at 2,355 ringgit

seems to be incomplete, according to Reuters market analyst Wang

Tao.

In other markets, Brent crude fell below $58 a barrel on

Tuesday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that

oil prices may decline as stocks continue to increase this year.

In other competing vegetable oil markets, the U.S. soyoil

contract for March fell 0.8 percent in late Asian trade.

The most active May soybean oil contract on the Dalian

Commodity Exchange rose 0.2 percent.

Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1028 GMT

Contract Month Last Change Low High Volume

MY PALM OIL FEB5 2305 +11.00 2300 2305 15

MY PALM OIL MAR5 2297 -18.00 2297 2340 526

MY PALM OIL APR5 2300 -17.00 2294 2344 27329

CHINA PALM OLEIN MAY5 4940 +36.00 4886 4942 273506

CHINA SOYOIL MAY5 5516 +10.00 5470 5528 232768

CBOT SOY OIL MAR5 31.76 -5.00 31.74 32.20 7587

INDIA PALM OIL FEB5 454.00 -5.00 452.50 458.80 662

INDIA SOYOIL FEB5 611.80 -9.15 611.00 620.20 12035

NYMEX CRUDE MAR5 52.12 -0.74 51.90 52.65 36200

Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne

CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound

Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne

India soy oil in Indian rupee per 10 kg

Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel

($1 = 3.5780 Malaysian ringgit)

($1 = 6.2416 Chinese yuan)

($1 = 62.11 Indian rupee)

(Editing by Tom Hogue, editing by Louise Heavens)