KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 27: Malaysian crude palm oil futures closed up marginally on Tuesday, reversing early losses as players bet on better exports for September in a market struggling to stay above 1,450 ringgit a ton.

The benchmark third-month December contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed up at 1,458 ringgit ($386.84) a ton. It had risen as much as 16 ringgit in the afternoon to a high of 1,471.

The low for the day was 1,446 ringgit, indicating that some players were still not comfortable with the market having broken the 1,450 resistance on Monday.

Speculators are trying to hit the next resistance of 1,480 but I don’t think we can sustain that yet, said a dealer.

Other traded contracts closed up 2 to 9 ringgit.

Volume totalled 6,735 lots of 25 tons each, more than 5 times the level seen in the morning.

I think we’ll see this pattern of phenomenal afternoon volumes in the next few days until Friday’s export numbers, said another dealer.

Market bulls are betting on strong exports of palm oil beginning this month as Pakistan, the Middle East and India import more products to prepare for the Ramadan and Diwali festivals in October/November.

The December futures contract rose 27 ringgit on Monday, helped by stronger export estimates for the first 25 days of September.

Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), the main tracker of palm oil shipments watched by the market, on Monday estimated exports for Sept. 1 to 25 at at 1,021,894 tons, up 12.4 per cent from what it tracked for Aug. 1 to 25.

SGS is due to estimate on Friday shipments for the whole of September.

In physical business of crude palm oil, September/October saw offers at 1,460 ringgit a ton and bids at 1,455 in the southern and central regions of Malaysia. Trades were reported at 1,450-1,455 ringgit in both regions.

—Reuters