Vegetable oil inventories in India fell to its lowest level in more than 3 years as palm oil imports in March stayed below average for the fourth straight month, a leading trade body said on Friday.
Depleted stocks could force the world's biggest buyer of vegetable oils to increase imports of palm oil and soyoil in the coming months, supporting Malaysian palm oil prices and US soyoil futures.
Vegetable oil stocks at the start of April 1 fell 11.3 per cent from a month ago to 1.67 million metric tons, the lowest since December 2021, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
Palm oil imports in March rose about 14 per cent from the previous month to 424,599 metric tons, the SEA said.
India imported an average of more than 750,000 tons of palm oil each month during the marketing year that ended in October 2024.
In the first five months of the 2024/25 marketing year ending in October, palm oil's share of India's total vegetable oil imports fell to 43 per cent from 61 per cent, while the combined share of soybean and sunflower oil rose to 57 per cent from 39 per cent.
Palm oil's premium over soyoil led Indian buyers to reduce palm oil purchases and increase soyoil buying in the past few months, dealers said.
Imports of soyoil rose 25 per cent to 355,358 tons in March, while sunflower oil imports fell about 16 per cent to 190,645 tons, the lowest in six months, it said.
Total vegetable oil imports rose 11 per cent to 998,344 million tons, the statement added.
The country's imports in April is likely to rise marginally as purchase of palm oil and sunflower oil are expected to increase in the month, said Rajesh Patel, managing partner at GGN Research, an edible oil trader.
India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, while it imports soyoil and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.
