Palm oil imports to India exceed 1 million tons for the second month in a row

India’s edible oil imports rose 5.5% to a record 1.85 million tons in August as companies bought more than 1 million tons of palm oil for the second consecutive month to build stocks for upcoming festivals, a leading trade body said.

The increased buying by the world’s largest importer of vegetable oils may help reduce palm oil stocks in Indonesia and Malaysia and support benchmark futures. The buying helped bolster soybean oil futures and may reduce stocks in the Black Sea sunflower oil-producing countries.

India’s average monthly imports of edible oil in the 2021/22 marketing year were 1.17 million tons, the Surveyors’ Association (SEA) said. India imported 1.76 million tons in July, which was also a record high.

Palm oil imports in August rose about 3.9% from the previous month to 1.13 million metric tons, the highest in nine months and in line with dealer estimates, SEA said in a statement.

Imports of soybean oil rose about 4.6% to 357,890 metric tons and sunflower oil rose 11.8% to 365,870 metric tons, the highest in seven months.

India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, while it imports soybean and sunflower oils from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.

The record imports pushed total stocks at various Indian ports to a record 1.46 million tons as of Sept. 1, up from 949,000 tons as of Aug. 1 and 611,000 tons a year earlier, SEA said.

Dealers said the surge in imports in August was the result of port congestion, which delayed the unloading of several vessels originally scheduled for July at Kandla port.

India may import a record 16-16.5 million tons of edible oils in the 2022/23 marketing year ending Oct. 31, SEA added.