Palm oil imports up 10.06% in 2016-17: SEA

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Palm oil imports rose by 10.06per cent to 92.93 lakh tonnes in 2016-17 marketing year thatended in October due to lower...

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Palm oil imports rose by 10.06per cent to 92.93 lakh tonnes in 2016-17 marketing year thatended in October due to lower domestic production, industrybody Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) said today.

India, the world's leading vegetable oil buyer, hadimported 84.43 lakh tonnes of palm oils during the lastmarketing year (November-October).

The country's total vegetable oils (edible and non-edible) import increased by 4.75 per cent to 154.40 lakhtonnes in 2016-17 from 147.38 lakh tonnes the last year.

The share of palm oil is more than 60 per cent of thetotal vegetable oil import.

According to the SEA, the country's imports came down inthe first quarter of 2016-17 marketing year because of gooddomestic oilseeds crop and better supply of edible oil.

Imports, however, rose in the rest of the quarters due todisparity in crushing that led to lower domestic production ofvegetable oil, it said.

Among palm oil products, import of RBD palmolein increasedto 28.71 lakh tonnes in the 2016-17 marketing year from 26.23lakh tonnes in the year-ago.

The shipment of crude palm oil (CPO) increased to 63.35lakh tonnes, as against 57.49 lakh tonnes, while the import ofcrude palm kernel oil (CPKO) jumped 87,000 tonnes, from 71,000tonnes in the said period.

Among soft oil, import of sunflower oil increased to21.69 lakh tonnes in 2016-17 from 15.16 lakh tonnes last year.

The shipment of soybean oil declined to 33.16 lakh tonnesfrom 42.35 lakh tonnes, while that of mustard seed oil to 2.93lakh tonnes from 3.77 lakh tonnes in the said period.

"Since October 2016 and onwards, the landed prices of RBDPalmolein and CPO have remained more or less the sameencouraging larger import of RBD Palmolein at the cost of CPO.

The spread between palm oil and soft oil also reducedencouraging larger import of soft oils," the SEA said.

India's monthly requirement is about 18 lakh tonnes andhas a stock of over 23.44 lakh tonnes that is equal to 39 daysof requirement.

India imports palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysiaand a small quantity of crude soft oil, including soyabean oilfrom Latin America. Sunflower oil is imported from Ukraine andRussia. PTI LUXMR.

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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