15/07/2008 (Business Standard) - The country's import of edible and non-edible oil jumped 12 per cent during the eight months ended June 30, as against the corresponding period a year ago, according to figures released by the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA).

The import of vegetable oils during November ‘07 -June ‘08 (oil year) touched 35 million tonne as compared with 31 million tonne in the comparable period last year.

According to the figures, import of edible oil increased to 30 million tonne, a rise of 13 per cent from 27 million tonne, while import of non-edible oil was recorded at 470,567 tonne, a jump of 5 per cent from 450,185 tonne.

The trade body, in a release, said the country's edible oil import, including that of vanaspati, grew by 7 per cent this oil year to 6 million tonne from 5.59 million tonne in the corresponding period last year.

In view of the lean crushing season, the import is likely to maintain at around 550,000 to 600,000 tonne per month in next three to four months till kharif oil seeds crop is available for crushing in November 2008, the SEA release said.

The total import of edible oil is likely to be in the range of 5.10-5.20 million tonne and non-edible import is estimated to be around 650,000 tonne.

The imports of vanaspati that registered the record 250,000 - 300,000 tonne through official and illegal imports through Sri Lanka last year, is likely to shrink this year to 50,000 tonne as import duty on crude edible oil has been brought down to "nil" thereby, avoiding illegal imports.

The total import of edible oil in June increased to 550,201 tonne as compared to 302,345 tonne in May and 309,629 tonne in April this year. Non-edible oil import, which was 59,219 tonne in May, is reported at 43,529 tonne in June.

In the April-May period, the slowdown in imports resulted into pipelines drying up. Therefore, the import in June this year heavily increased and shot up to 593,730 tonne (590,552 tonne in June 2007).

In last two months, crude palm oil, RBD palmolein and sunflower oil prices declined 7-8 per cent because of record inventory of over 2.0 million tonne with Malaysia towards June-end.

The rates of crude palm oil are currently hovering around $1,160, crude soybean oil and crude sunflower oil at $1,460 and $1,655 a tonne respectively.