March 25, 2006	Saturday	Safar 24, 1427

BANGKOK, March 24: Malaysian crude palm oil futures ended up slightly in very thin trade on Friday as investors held to the sidelines ahead of export estimates due to be released on Monday, dealers said.

The benchmark third-month June crude palm oil contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives in Kuala Lumpur was up 2 ringgit at 1,453 ringgit a ton ($393.23) after trading as low as 1,449 ringgit.

Players are still waiting for the export numbers for March 1-25 next week, he said.

Other traded months settled up 1 and 6 ringgit.

Volume was 4,318 lots of 25 tons each, barely changed from Thursday’s 4,752 lots on a market which sees 6,000 lots or more change hands on a busy day.

There was nothing much in the market, no other leads to move the market, another Malaysian dealer said.

Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), one of the two cargo surveyors watched by the industry, said on Monday Malaysia exported 708,345 tons of palm oil exports between March 1 and 20, down 4.8 per cent from the 744,152 tons it tracked for Feb. 1-20. —Reuters