Cooking oil imports by India to drop on near-record reserves

Purchases of vegetable oils, including those for industrial use, fell 24% to 700,000 tonnes last month

Cooking oil imports by India, the world's largest palm oil buyer, probably declined for the first time in five months in April, as reserves stayed near a record and summer heat curbed consumption of fried foods. Palm oil futures declined for the first time in three days in Malaysia.

Purchases of vegetable oils, including those for industrial use, fell 24 per cent to 700,000 tonnes last month from 925,334 tonnes a year earlier, according to the median of estimates from five processors and brokers compiled by Bloomberg. Palm oil imports gained nine per cent to 560,000 tonnes from 512,137 tonnes, the survey showed.

The Solvent Extractors' Association of India will release the data next week.

Palm oil futures in Kuala Lumpur dropped 4 percent in April, falling for a third consecutive month, as exports declined 5.6 per cent, according to surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance. World exports of seven major edible oils and fats are expected to rise on increased imports by China and India, led by higher palm oil deliveries, Oil World said May 7.

"Imports slowed because of higher stockpiles from huge purchases in the past few months and the arrival of the new rapeseed crop," said Sandeep Bajoria, chief executive officer of the Mumbai-based broker Sunvin Group. "Local demand has been sluggish since last month because of extreme heat in the summer months that limit consumption of oily food."

Inventories, including those at ports and in the pipeline, were 2.1 million tonnes at the start of April and near a record of 2.12 million tonnes in March, extractors' association data showed. Cooking oil imports jumped 22 per cent to 4.63 million tonnes in the five months through March, it said.

Slow off-take
"Stockpiles are not moving fast enough as local off-take is slow," Pradip Desai, managing director of Mumbai-based broker Palmtrade Services Pvt Ltd.

Palm oil for delivery in July fell as much as 0.8 per cent to 2,271 ringgit ($764) a tonne on the Malaysia Derivatives Exchange and was at 2,283 ringgit at 4:01 pm in Kuala Lumpur. Futures, down 6.4 per cent this year, fell to 2,230 ringgit on May 6, the lowest price since December 13.

Exports from Malaysia fell 5.6 per cent to 1.29 million tonnes last month from March, SGS said on April 30. Shipments of six vegetable oils and tallow may be 71 million tonnes in the 2012-2013 season from 67.5 million tonnes a year earlier, Oil World said on May 7.

India, the world's biggest cooking oil consumer after China, meets more than half its demand through imports. It buys palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia and soybean oil from the US, Brazil and Argentina.

"There was some delay in shipments of soybean oil from South America due to problems at the loading ports and the oil should reach India this month," Ashok Sethia, executive director of Sethia Oils Ltd., said by phone from Kolkata. About 200,000 tonnes of soybean oil may arrive this month, he said.

Crude soybean oil imports probably fell to 60,000 tonnes in April from 216,509 tonnes a year earlier, while sunflower oil purchases may have declined 46 per cent to 70,000 tonnes from 129,538 tonnes, the survey showed.