India’s palm oil imports edged up in November as refiners took advantage of lower prices, boosting purchases of the tropical oil while reducing imports of the costlier soyoil and sunflower oil, a leading industry body said on Monday.
Higher palm oil imports by India, the world’s largest buyer of vegetable oils, could help top producers Indonesia and Malaysia cut stocks and support benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures, while putting pressure on U.S. soyoil futures .
Palm oil imports in November rose about 5% from October to 632,341 metric tonnes, the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA) said.
Imports of soyoil dropped more than 18% to 370,661 tonnes and sunflower oil imports fell 45% to a two-year low of 142,953 tonnes, the industry body said.
India also imported 5,000 tonnes of canola oil from the United Arab Emirates in the month, it added.
Lower imports of soyoil and sunflower oil cut India’s total imports of edible oils in November by 13.3% from a month earlier to a seven-month low of 1.15 million tonnes, the SEA said.
In November, India imported a record 69,919 tonnes of soyoil from China after a supply glut prompted discounts from Chinese crushers, versus India’s traditional South American suppliers.
India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, and imports soyoil and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.
Palm oil is now about $100 per tonne cheaper than soyoil and nearly $200 cheaper than sunflower oil, prompting Indian buyers to step up palm oil purchases for December and January shipments, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trade house.
“Some buyers have cancelled soyoil import contracts for December and January and are replacing those volumes with palm oil,” he said.