From May, India Is Expected To Import 65,000 Tonnes Of Sunflower Oil Per Month From Russia

Foreign news, May 15: India is expected to import 65,000 tonnes of sunflower oil per month from Russia and 30,000 tonnes from Argentina from May, said Sandeep Bajoria, chief executive of Mumbai-based vegetable oil trader Sunvin Group.

Speaking at the Global Edible Oils International Conference in Dubai, he said this would take care of the needs of the major brand names in the Indian refining industry. Price-sensitive buyers have turned to palm oil, soya bean oil and locally produced rapeseed and peanut oils from India.

For 2021/22 (November to October), India's sunflower oil imports are likely to fall to 1.65 million tonnes from 1.9 million tonnes the previous year, due to disruptions to Black Sea supplies following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Sunflower oil accounts for about 9 per cent of India's edible oil consumption. However, following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, India has not received any shipments from Ukraine since 27 March.

India bought 1.4 million tonnes of sunflower oil from Ukraine and 226,000 tonnes from Russia in 2021.

Bajoria said India's cooking oil stocks could support it for another 10 days, but if the Indonesian export ban was not lifted by May 20, India, the world's largest importer of cooking oil, would face a shortage of palm oil.

He said that palm oil consumers would have to pay higher prices and that palm oil prices would be equal to soft oil and possibly even higher. But he hoped that the Indonesian government would take the appropriate decision. This would be in the interest of the exporting countries and also in the interest of their long-term trading partners.

Bajoria said that Indonesia should at least partially lift the ban on wool palm oil by 20 May.