India's May palm oil imports improve; soyoil surges on shrinking premium
India's palm oil imports remained below average in May as refiners favored soyoil due to a narrowed price gap, exacerbated by cooking gas shortages impacting bulk consumers.
- Shift to soyoil by Indian refiners.
- India's cooking gas crisis affecting palm oil demand.
- Narrowing price gap between palm oil and soyoil.
MUMBAI: India’s palm oil imports rose modestly in May from the previous month’s four-month low, but stayed below average, as refiners turned to rival soyoil after palm’s price advantage over competing oils narrowed, five dealers said.
Lower than usual imports of palm oil by the world’s biggest importer of vegetable oils could swell stocks in top producers Indonesia and Malaysia and weigh on benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures.
Palm oil imports rose to 551,000 metric tons in May, from 513,403 tons in April, dealer estimates showed.
Soyoil imports surged 38% month-on-month in May to 497,000 tons, the highest in five months, while sunflower oil shipments fell 32.3% to 294,000 tons.
India’s overall imports of edible oil rose 2.6% from April to 1.3 million tons in May, as soyoil purchases jumped, estimates showed.
The figures exclude duty-free shipments arriving via land from Nepal, the dealers said.
India’s monthly palm oil imports averaged about 632,000 tonnes in the marketing year ended October 2025, according to the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA), which is due to publish May import data by mid-June.
India’s imports of palm oil have stayed below average as cooking gas shortages curbed demand from restaurants and other bulk consumers, said Aashish Acharya, vice president of Patanjali Foods Ltd, a leading importer of palm oil.
These restaurants serve popular deep-fried snacks such as samosas and chole bhature, which features chickpeas.
The world’s second-largest importer of cooking gas, India is grappling with its worst gas crisis in decades, as the government cuts supplies to industry and raises commercial cylinder prices to shield households from shortages.
Soyoil imports jumped in May as the commodity’s premium over palm oil narrowed to about $40 a tonne, boosting its appeal among refiners, said Rajesh Patel, managing partner at trader GGN Research in Rajkot, a city in the western state of Gujarat.
Palm oil will need to trade at a steeper discount to rival soyoil to revive demand, said Sandeep Bajoria, chief executive of Sunvin Group, a vegetable oil brokerage and consultancy firm.
Comments