India's vegetable oil imports increased by 50 per cent to 8.66 lakh tonnes in February due to higher inward shipments of palm oil and lower crushing of soyabean in the domestic market, according to industry data.
"Import of vegetable oils during February 2015 is reported at 8,66,167 tonnes as compared to 5,78,975 tonnes in February 2014, up by 50 per cent," Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) said in a statement.
During November 2014-February 2015 period, vegetable oils imports increased by 23 per cent to 42,91,153 tonnes as compared to 34,96,807 tonnes in the year-ago period.
Oil year runs from November to October.
Out of total imports, imports of edible oils stood at 41,98,875 tonnes and non-edible oils at 92,278 tonnes.
"In last four months, due to nil export duty on palm products by Indonesia and Malaysia and reduced demand of crude palm oil for bio-diesel, pushed the export of palm products to India to reduce burgeoning stock held by the exporting countries," SEA said.
"Also, due to high prices of soyabean and lesser realisation for oil and soyabean meal in export market, resulted in lower crushing and lesser oil availability in domestic market," it added.
Stocks of edible oils, as on March 1, 2015, at various ports is estimated at 6.10 lakh tonnes and about 14 lakh tonnes is in pipelines.
Total stock, both at ports and in pipelines, decreased to 20.1 lakh tonnes from 20.95 lakh tonnes last month. India's monthly requirement is about 16 lakh tonnes.
In December last year, the government hiked import duty on both crude and refined edible oil by 5 per cent.
The customs duty on crude oil has been increased to 7.5 per cent from 2.5 per cent earlier, while the duty on refined edible oil has been raised to 15 per cent from 10 per cent.
India's vegetable oil imports rose 12 per cent to an all-time high of 11.82 million tonnes in the 2013-14 oil marketing year ended October, on rise in domestic consumption and low rates of cooking oils in global markets.
The country imports about 60 per cent of the annual domestic demand of vegetable oils (comprising edible and non-edible oils) of about 19 million tonnes.
