India’s H1 vegetable oil imports up 21%; rising refined palm oil shipments cause of concern: SEA
India’s vegetable oil imports rose 21 percent to 81.10 thousand tons in the first six months of the current oil year, industry body SEA said on Friday, driven by a worrying increase in refined palm oil shipments. Vegetable oil Imports amounted to 67.07 liters in the same period from 2021 to 22 years of oil.
India is the world’s leading buyer of vegetable oil. The oil year runs from November to October.
In fact, vegetable oil imports in April remained 10 percent lower at 10.50 liters compared to 11.72 liters in the previous month.
According to the Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA), “The increase in RBD palm imports in the first six months of the current oil year reported at 11.01 liters represents nearly 22 percent of total palm oil imports, depriving the local industry of capacity utilization.”
severe suffering
The company said in a statement that the country’s palm oil refining industry is suffering severely from extremely low capacity utilization due to excessive importation of stingy RBD and has thus been reduced to mere packers.
To address this issue, the SEA said the fee differential between crude palm oil (CPO) and refined palm oil needs to be increased from the current 7.5 percent to at least 15 percent, by imposing an additional agricultural tax of 7.5 percent on RBD Palmolein.
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As a result of the increase in RBD palm oil shipments, the share of palm oil rose to 61 percent of total vegetable oil imports from 49 percent, while soft oil imports declined in the first six months of the current year.
Palm oil importsboth crude and refined oil, increased to 49.09 liters during the period from November to April of the 2022-23 oil year, from 32.25 liters in the same period last year due to price parity.
Although total imports of soft oils — sunflower and soybean oils — remained low at 30.92 liters in the first half of the current oil year, shipments of these two vegetable oils saw a sharp jump, according to the Maritime Energy Agency.
As of May 1, stocks of edible oil were estimated at 33.74 liters in the various ports, which is slightly lower than the 34.47 liters in the previous month.
India imports Palm oil mainly from Indonesia Malaysia, and a small amount of soft crude oil, including soybean oil from Argentina. Sunflowers are imported from Russia and Ukraine.