Palm oil futures on the Bursa Malaysia Exchange rose sharply ahead of the weekend, amid a wave of fresh buying sparked by strength in competing vegetable oils that helped boost the benchmark contract to a six-month high.

The benchmark December palm oil contract closed the Friday October 4 session at 4,300 Malaysian ringgit ($1,019) per tonne, up by 118 ringgit per tonne, or 2.8%, from a close of 4,182 ringgit per tonne on Thursday.

Palm oil futures were also swept higher on Friday on talk that Indonesia, the world’s top exporter of palm oil, will hike its export duty starting November due to an increase in the base price.

Normally, palm oil is the cheapest of all the edible oils and is usually priced at a discount of $30-40 per tonne to soybean oil, but it has been trading at a premium since August.

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