KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26: Malaysian crude palm oil futures dropped 1.6 per cent on Wednesday as investors paused to book profits after the market scaled a near four-month high earlier in the week.

The benchmark December contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange settled down 43 ringgit, or 1.6 percent, at 2,612 ringgit ($763) a ton, after hitting a low of 2,597 ringgit.

The market ran up too early, too fast, so now players want to take some profit from this, said a leading trader.

But it will not drop very significantly as edible oil prices, such as soybean and sunflower, are still very high. Other traded months fell between 36 and 50 ringgit in overall trade of 9,212 lots of 25 tons each.

On Monday, the palm oil market reached a near four-month high as a price forecast by top industry analyst Dorab Mistry ignited bullish sentiment. The market then slipped Tuesday on profit taking.

Palm oil, in high demand for making sweetmeats and other delicacies during the current festival season in Asia, is 5.5 per cent off an historic high of 2,764 ringgit reached in June.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Sept. 1-25 rose 12.4 per cent to 1,100,300 tons from 979,164 tons shipped between Aug. 1 and 25, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Tuesday.

Another surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance said exports in the same period rose 11.9 per cent to 1,076,053 tons.

December palm oil on Singapore’s Joint Asian Derivatives Exchange was untraded.

In the Malaysian physical market, crude palm oil for September shipment in the southern region was quoted at 2,655/2,670 ringgit a ton. Trades were done between 2,670 and 2,680 ringgit.—Reuters