KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 21): Malaysian palm oil futures charted a fifth consecutive day of losses on Friday evening, ending the day near three-year lows, weighed down by concerns that output would rise.

It was up earlier in the day after Malaysia, the world's second-largest exporter of palm oil, announced it would maintain its export tax on crude palm oil for October at 0%.

The export tax was at 0% last month as well, down from 4.5% in August.

The benchmark palm oil contract for December delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange ended down 0.1% at RM2,143 (US$519.14) a tonne.

It fell to a three-year low of RM2,137 in the previous session and is down 3.6% on the week, its sharpest weekly decline since mid-July.

Trading volumes stood at 46,141 lots of 25 tonnes each at the close of trade.

"The market still carries concerns of rising supplies," said a Kuala Lumpur based trader, as palm oil production is forecast to rise in line with seasonal trend for the coming months.

In other related oils, the Chicago September soybean oil contract was down 0.5%, while the January soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange dropped 0.7%.

Meanwhile, the Dalian January palm oil contract fell 1.1%.

Palm oil prices are affected by movements of other edible oils, as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.

Palm oil looks neutral in a range of RM2,140-2,162 per tonne, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.

Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1115 GMT

Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne
CBOT soy oil in US 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 US dollars per barrel

(US$1 = RM4.1280)
(US$1 = 72.0900 Indian rupees)
(US$1 = 6.8424 Chinese yuan)