September 15, 2006	Friday	Sha'aban 21, 1427

BANGKOK, Sept 14: Malaysian crude palm oil futures ended higher on Thursday a day ahead of the release of export estimate data, dealers said. Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange in Kuala Lumpur ended up 10 ringgit at 1,537 ringgit a ton ($419) after trading between 1,534 ringgit and 1,546 ringgit.

Other traded contracts were up eight to 13 ringgitin overall volume which rose to 10,433 lots of 25 tons each from Wednesday's 9,526.

The market is oversold and we saw a technical retracement, a Malaysian dealer in Kuala Lumpur said. Further retracement is likely after the market had been down for quite so many days.

The market had fallen since Monday with the benchmark November contract down as low as 1,517 ringgit on Wednesday, its lowest in nearly two months.

Our estimate for exports for the period is 550,000 to 580,000 tons, the first dealer said.

Malaysia exported 628,542 tons of palm products between August 1 and 15, up 21 per cent from the 520,036 tons shipped between July 1 and 15, cargo surveyor SGS said.

Exports of Malaysian oil palm products in the first 10 days of September were 365,521 tons, down 22.2 per cent from 469,977 tons shipped between August 1 and 10, SGS said.

Dealers said the next immediate support should be at 1,530 ringgit and resistance at 1,550 ringgit on Friday.—Reuters