March 18, 2006	Saturday	Safar 17, 1427

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17: Malaysian crude palm oil futures closed marginally lower on Friday on pre-weekend profit-taking but dealers said the market was likely to stay above the key 1,450 ringgit support next week.

The benchmark third-month June crude palm oil contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives settled one ringgit lower at 1,455 ringgit ($392.82) a ton. Its high for the day was 1,461 ringgit and the low 1,451.

Other traded months for palm oil settled up 3 ringgit to down 5 ringgit. Overall volume was 4,015 lots of 25 tons each, versus Thursday’s 3,757 lots.

Dealers said prices for next week would be determined by export estimates for March 1-20, but added that the 1,450-ringgit support was likely to hold.

Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), one of the two cargo surveyors followed by the market, said on Wednesday exports for March 1-15 were down only 6.8 per cent from

Feb. 1-15, compared with the 10.5 per cent drop seen for March 1-10 against Feb. 1-10.

—Reuters