Indian Import of Vegetable Oils Up in March

The Soybean Extractors Association of India (SEA) said, the country’s import of vegetable oils in March this year reached 1,104,570 MT, increasing 13% from 980,243 MT in March 2021.  Bulk of import was edible oil at 1,051,698 MT while non-edible oil was only 52,872 MT.  Both showed marked increases from respective prior year data at 957,633 MT and 22,610 MT.  Import during the first five months of the oil year 2021-2022 (November 2021-March 2022) accumulated to 5,795,728 MT, higher by 8% from 5,375,003 MT at the same time year-ago.

During the first five-month period, palm oil import declined to 2,653,253 MT from 3,090,559 MT in a similar period in prior year, while soft oils increased to 2,989,665 MT from 2,149,767 MT mainly due to higher import of soybean oil.  Indonesia and Malaysia are the major suppliers of palm oil to India and in said period, Malaysia supplied 1,152,197 MT of crude palm oil and 289,361 MT of RBD palm olein while Indonesia supplied 501,004 MT of crude palm oil and 474,907 MT RBD palm olein.  Import of soybean oil came largely from Argentina at 1,260,490 MT and Brazil at 428,063 MT, while sunflower oil mainly came from Ukraine at 842,956 MT and Russia at 194,905 MT.