* Investors await key central bank meetings, higher stocks view weighs * India sets higher base import price on RBD palmolein * Cargill says its Singapore veg oil traders leave (Updates throughout) By Chew Yee Kiat SINGAPORE, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Malaysian crude palm oil ended lower on Wednesday, as market caution and expectations of higher stocks in No.2 producer Malaysia trumped lingering weather fears in the U.S. Midwest. The U.S. soy-growing region received little relief from the persistent dryness, with the damage being reflected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's downgrade of the soybean crop condition by 2 percentage points from the previous week. But cautious sentiment dominated ahead of the European Central Bank's Thursday meeting and as markets waited to see if there is any fresh monetary stimulus from the U.S. Federal Reserve at the end of its two-day meeting later on Wednesday. Palm oil traders were also looking for further clues to Malaysia's July stock levels after exports showed some signs of slowing. "A few months back, stocks were above 2 million tonnes and last month stocks were surprisingly a little weak, so this month stock levels should pull up a little bit," said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur. The benchmark October palm oil futures on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange lost 1.2 percent to close at 2,945 ringgit ($946) per tonne. Traded volumes picked up to 27,269 lots of 25 tonnes each, compared to the usual 25,000 lots after a quiet morning trading session. Malaysian palm oil exports fell from a month ago as festival demand eased. Cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services reported a decline of 15 percent and another cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, reported a steeper drop of 19 percent. Slower exports could ease pressure on tightening stocks in Malaysia, which fell to a 14-month low in June. Traders are also looking out for the possibility of El Nino returning to Southeast Asia as the adverse weather condition could hurt production for top producers Malaysia and Indonesia. Major vegetable oil importer India has set a new base import price on refined palmolein at $1,053 per tonne, the government said in a statement on Wednesday, making imports of the refined palm oil costlier in a bid to protect domestic refiners from cheap Indonesian exports. In related news, global commodities trading giant Cargill Inc said on Tuesday a group of employees at its vegetable oils trading desk in Singapore had left the company but daily business operations remained unaffected. Brent crude strengthened to $105.70 per barrel by 0830 GMT, recovering from an earlier drop as softer manufacturing data from China chipped away at fragile market sentiment. This raises palm oil's prospects to be diverted to making biodiesel. In other vegetable oil markets, the most active U.S. soyoil contract for December delivery had lost 0.2 percent by 1014 GMT. The most active January 2013 soyoil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange closed 0.8 percent higher. Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1014 GMT Contract Month Last Change Low High Volume MY PALM OIL AUG2 2908 -47.00 2908 2965 155 MY PALM OIL SEP2 2932 -33.00 2915 2988 2235 MY PALM OIL OCT2 2945 -35.00 2924 3000 16613 CHINA PALM OLEIN JAN3 7854 +8.00 7840 7920 230106 CHINA SOYOIL JAN3 9570 +74.00 9532 9632 546482 CBOT SOY OIL DEC2 53.29 -0.11 53.13 53.88 7743 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

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