Overall, import of vegetable oils in January, 2025 was down by 13 per cent, while it was 40 per cent up in November 2024.
Chennai: Despite palm oil prices cooling down from December levels, palm oil imports in January have dropped to the lowest level in 13 years due to supply tightness in the international market.
The import of palm oil in January at 2.75 lakh tonnes was the lowest in 13 years and 64 per cent down from 7.8 lakh tonnes in January 2024, as per the data of Solvent Extractors Association of India.
Malaysian palm oil exports declined as tightening export supplies prompting consumers to switch to lower priced South American soya oil. Palm oil is losing market share in India and slowing down and share is taken by soya oil.
Global volumes of soya oil have skyrocketed in recent months, promoted by extremely large price discounts. There has been a quick absorption of the surplus soya oil to ease the tightness in palm oil. The soybean oil import during November 2024 to January 2025 jumped to 12.7 lakh tons compared to 4.91 lakh tons during the same period last year.
Compared to January 2024, palm oil prices have gone up, but have softened from December levels. Average crude palm oil prices were up from $911 per tonne in January 2024 to $1170 per tonne last month and refined oil prices were up from $886 per tonne to $1126. However, in the last one month, palm oil prices have cooled down by $80 to $100 per tonne but still soybean prices are attractive compared to palm oil.
Further, there has been a massive influx of edible oil from Nepal. Between October, 2024 and January, Nepal imported about 2 lakh tons of edible oil, mainly crude soybean oil and sunflower oil and exported 110,000 tons of edible oil to India.
Overall, import of vegetable oils in January, 2025 was down by 13 per cent, while it was 40 per cent up in November 2024.
