Vegetable oils import, including both edible and non-edible oils, increased 32 per cent during April this year, while it grew 1.7 per cent during the first six months of the current oil year November 2020 to April 2021).
According to the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) of India, 1.05 million tonnes (mt) of vegetable oils were imported in April 2021 compared with 798,715 tonnes in the same period a year ago. The imports comprised 1.02 mt of edible oils and 23,435 tonnes of non-edible oils.
The overall import of vegetable oils stood at 6.42 mt during November-April 2020-21 against 6.31 mt during the corresponding period a year ago.
BV Mehta, Executive Director of SEA, said that import was up by seven per cent in April compared with March as stocks in the pipeline were low and imports were lower in February 2021.
On the 32 per cent growth in the import in April , he said there was a complete lockdown in April 2020 which affected imports then.
CPO increases
Import of crude palm oil (CPO) has increased to 3.68 mt in the first six months of the oil year against 2.82 mt in the year-ago period. He said that Malaysia’s share in export of CPO increased to 1.95 mt during the first six months of the oil year 2020-21 from 0.5 mt in 2019-20.
Soft oils dip
The share of Indonesia, as a result, dropped to 1.69 mt during the review period from 2.31 mt the previous year.
The import of soft oils, including sunflower and soybean oils, declined to 2.47 mt during the first half of the oil year compared with 2.92 mt in year-ago period.
He said the high price of sunflower oil discouraged its import.
However, soybean oil maintained at same level during the period. India imported 1.10 mt (1.51 mt) of sunflower oil and 1.37 mt (1.39 mt) during the period.
India imported crude soybean degummed oil mainly from Argentina (1.24 mt), and crude sunflower oil from Ukraine (920,151 tonnes) followed by Russia (82,673 tonnes) and Argentina (72,607 tonnes).
Non-edible oils
Import of non-edible oils stood at 158,112 tonnes in the review period against 126,538 tonnes in the year-ago period. The soap and ole-chemical industry in the country imports non-edible oils such as Palm Fatty Acid Distillate and Palm Stearin.