Ruchi Soya expects sunflower oil imports to hit record high

Palm oil imports to drop significantly

India's sunflower oil imports are likely to jump 54% to a record high in the year to October 2014 as the world's biggest edible oil importer trims palm oil purchases to make room for the soft oil, said Dinesh Shahra, managing director of Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd .

The rise in sunflower oil imports would provide support to prices that are under pressure due to a record crop in top producer Ukraine, but will cap palm oil prices that have risen in the last two months on a likely drop in production in top two producing countries.

"We are expecting palm oil imports would drop significantly to around 7.4 million tonnes from 8.17 million tonne last year due to price spreads in favour of soft oils," Managing Director of the country's biggest edible oil buyer said.

India is likely to buy 1.45 million tonne sunflower oil in 2013/14, higher than the previous record purchase of 1.1 million tonne in 2011/12, Shahra said. India imports most of its sunflower oil from Ukraine and palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.

The country's total edible oil imports are set to rise by 4% in 2013/14 to 10.8 million tonne due to higher imports of soft oils like sunflower and soyoil, he said.

The price gap between crude palm oil and crude sunflower oil narrowed to $47 per tonne in February, compared with $430 per tonne during the same period last year, according data compiled by Solvent Extractors Association.