Russia left Ukraine far behind in export of sunflower oil to India
12-Jul-2024 05:31 PM
Mumbai. Data from the Solvent Extractors Association of India shows that during the first eight months of the current marketing season, i.e. from November 2023 to June 2024, a total of about 24.64 lakh tonnes of crude sunflower oil was imported from abroad in India and Russia was its largest supplier country.
During this period, about 11.75 lakh tonnes of sunflower oil was imported from Russia alone. Earlier, it was imported the most from Ukraine, but now Russia has gone far ahead of it and Romania has come to second place while Ukraine has slipped to third place.
Argentina also remains an important supplier. According to the available data, during the eight months from November 2023 to June 2024, India imported 6.03 lakh tonnes of sunflower oil from Romania, 3.53 lakh tonnes from Ukraine and 2.40 lakh tonnes from Argentina.
Romania is also a neighboring country of Russia in the Black Sea region. Apart from this, during the period under review, 4500 tonnes of sunflower oil was imported from Brazil and 88 thousand tonnes from other countries of the world.
These figures clearly show that during the period under review, more than three times more sunflower was imported from Russia than Ukraine in India, which was also almost twice more than the imports from Romania.
There has been a good increase in the import of sunflower oil in recent months. According to the data of the association, sunflower oil imports in India were 1.29 lakh tonnes in November 2023, 2.61 lakh tonnes in December, 2.20 lakh tonnes in January 2024 and 2.97 lakh tonnes in February, which jumped to 4.46 lakh tonnes in March.
However, in April 2024 it decreased to around 2.35 lakh tonnes, but again jumped to 4.11 lakh tonnes in May and increased to around 4.66 lakh tonnes in June.
The interesting fact is that during these eight months, the import of soybean oil could reach only 18.68 lakh tonnes, while the import of sunflower oil increased by 6 lakh tonnes to a high of 24.64 lakh tonnes.
The fast pace at which the goods are coming in seems to indicate that by the end of the 2023-24 marketing season, sunflower oil imports will cross the 30 lakh ton mark and reach a new record level.