India palm oil imports edge higher in May, remain below average

MUMBAI: India’s palm oil imports edged up in May, rebounding from a four-month low, but remained below normal levels as refiners increased purchases of cheaper soyoil after palm oil’s price advantage narrowed, a leading industry body said on Friday.

Lower-than-usual imports of palm oil by the world’s biggest buyer of vegetable oils could lead to swelling stocks in top producers Indonesia and Malaysia, weighing on benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures.

India’s palm oil imports in May were up 7% from April to 549,356 metric tons, the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.

India’s monthly palm oil imports averaged about 632,000 tons in the marketing year ended October 2025, according to the SEA.

“Restaurants and other commercial users haven’t been buying as much palm oil because of cooking gas shortages, and that’s been weighing on imports,” said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trade house.

Imports of soyoil rose 37% to 493,854 tons and sunflower oil imports decreased nearly 32% to 295,726 tons, the industry trade body said.

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Higher imports of palm oil and soyoil lifted total vegetable oil imports in May by 4.2% from a month ago to 1.37 million tons, the highest in three months, the SEA said.

India’s vegetable oil imports in the first seven months of the 2026/27 marketing year, which began on November 1, rose 12% from a year earlier to 9.2 million tons, the SEA said.

Palm oil imports are likely to rise above 600,000 tons in June, while soyoil imports could fall to around 350,000 tons, said Rajesh Patel, managing partner at trader GGN Research in Rajkot, a city in the western state of Gujarat.

India sources most of its palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, while soyoil and sunflower oil are imported mainly from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.