India extends stock limit on edible oils till year-end to fend off high global prices

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Agriculture · 01 April, 2022

India extends stock limit on edible oils till year-end to fend off high global prices

Top vegetable oil buyer India extended stocking limits on bulk buyers of edible oils and oilseeds by six months, until Dec. 31, the second extension for the ruling since it was put in place in October last year, to ease local prices of cooking oils.

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Top vegetable oil buyer India extended stocking limits on bulk buyers of edible oils and oilseeds by six months, until Dec. 31, the second extension for the ruling since it was put in place in October last year, to ease local prices of cooking oils.

The new stock limit ruling will be effective from April 1 and will apply uniformly to all states and union territories of the country, a notification by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said March 30.

A year-long rally in international vegetable oil markets has pushed wholesale edible oil prices in the country up by as much as 64%, according to food ministry data, as India imports about 60% of its requirement, mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina and Ukraine.

Over the same time, the price of crude palm oil, or CPO -- India's largest vegetable oil import – has risen about 55%, with CPO FOB Indonesia priced at $1,620/mt on March 30, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

An earlier ruling on Feb. 4 had extended the stock limits till June 30 and excluded six states that already had mandates.

The latest ruling left the stock limits unchanged at 3 mt of edible oils for retailers, 5 mt for wholesalers, 0.3 mt for retail outlets of bulk consumers such as big chain retailers and shops, and 10 mt for their depots. Processors of edible oils would be able to stock 90 days of their storage capacities, the release said.

"The stock limits have slowed down oilseed crush as farmers' selling was lacking in view of rising seed prices. As a result, we saw a drawdown from port stocks as historically high vegetable oil prices prevent importers from taking big risks and they instead increased the stock-to-use ratio," Anil Kumar Bagani, head of research at vegetable oil brokerage Sunvin Group, said.

India's vegetable oil imports rose by 22% on the year to 1.02 million mt in February but port stocks as of end-February dipped to their lowest since May 2021 as price-sensitive buyers scaled back purchases amid high international prices, data from national trade body Solvent Extractors' Association showed March 14.

The move may be counterproductive as the harvest season for mustard seed – a key oilseed crop in India – has almost arrived, but processors and stockists will not hold stocks as they used to do in the past, and farmers will hold on to stocks in anticipation of more favorable prices, Gaurav Chand Kataria, an edible oil trader based in Mumbai, said.

This could have a knock-on effect of discouraging importers and wholesale dealers from purchase and offtake of imported stocks as international prices are already high, Kataria added.

by. 28th March 2022