India’s palm oil imports fall 15% to 4.39 lakh tonne in May

India’s imports of palm oil fell by 14.59 percent to 4,39,173 tons during May this year, but there was Sharp rise in crude sunflower oil shipmentsindustry body SEA said on Thursday.

India, the world’s largest buyer of vegetable oils, imported 5,14,022 tons of palm oils in May 2022.

However, the The country’s total imports of vegetable oils decreased marginally to 10,58,263 tons in May this year from 10,61,416 tons in the same period last year.

The share of palm oil is about 59 percent of the country’s total vegetable oil imports.

According to the Solvent Extractors Association (SEA), the import of palm oil products rose sharply to 5,348,396 tons during the November-May 2022-23 oil year due to price parity, compared to 3,739,783 tons in the same period of the year. the past.

Also read: Reducing import duties on refined sunflower and soybean oil to 12.5 percent

“The share of palm oil rose to 59 percent from 50 percent, while imports of soft oils declined. However, in the past two months, shipments of sunflower and soybean oils increased sharply,” SEA CEO PV Mehta said in a statement.

Importing palm oil products

Among palm oil products, crude palm oil imports fell to 3.48 thousand tons in May this year from 4.09 thousand tons in the same period last year, according to SEA data.

Similarly, RBD palm import decreased to 85,205 tons from 1 lakh tons, while crude palm kernel oil (CPKO) import rose to 5,850 tons from 4,265 tons in May.

Other oil imports

Among light oils, the import of soybean oil decreased to 3.18 thousand tons in May this year, compared to 3.73 thousand tons in the same period of 2022.

Sunflower oil imports increased sharply to 2.95 thousand tons, compared to 1.18 thousand tons in May 2022.

Also read: India lowers the primary import price of palm oil and gold

According to SEA, stocks of edible oils as on June 1 of this year are estimated at 7.38 thousand tons and about 22.03 thousand tons in the pipeline.

India imports palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, and a small amount of soft crude oil, including soybean, from Argentina. Sunflower oil is imported from Ukraine and Russia.