KUALA LUMPUR, June 8: Malaysian crude palm oil futures ended up on Thursday, as players scrambled to cover short positions, prompted by the weakening of the ringgit and ahead of the release of export estimates, dealers said.

The benchmark third-month August contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange ended up nine ringgit at 1,460 ringgit a ton ($398.3) after trading as high as 1,465 ringgit.

Today, the market went up in the morning and the afternoon also, one dealer said. It was mainly because of the ringgit that was driving the market higher.

Another dealer said, “When it went comfortably above 1,450, we saw the most short covering. The short covering was prompted by the ringgit.”

On Thursday, the ringgit was trading at 3.6650/3.6700 to the US dollar, down from 3.6545/6595 on Wednesday’s closing. Last week, it rose as high as 3.6220 to a dollar.

The Board will release official production, exports and closing stocks figures for May on June 10. A Reuters poll on May 23 showed palm oil stocks in Malaysia were expected to have risen 5.3 per cent in May to stand at 1.59 million tons from 1,510,048 tons a month earlier because of lower exports.

Palm oil output is estimated to have risen 4.0pc to 1,363,173 tons in May, according to the median estimate of five plantation houses polled by Reuters.—Reuters