Soyoil is expected to pay for it, while a top Russian producer sees war-damaged Black Sea ports cutting shipments to India.
Angshu Mallick of the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) expects India to import 3.5 million metric tons of sunflower oil in 2026/27, up 30%. He told Reuters on Wednesday that the Sept 24 duty cut has made the oil cheaper for consumers.
Key Facts
- Crude sunflower oil's basic import duty fell to zero from 10% on Sept 24.
- Up 30%, India's 2026/27 sunflower oil imports would reach 3.5 million metric tons.
- Soyoil purchases are expected to fall to 5 million tons, a 10.7% drop.
Mallick spoke on the sidelines of the Globoil conference in Mumbai and said the duty reduction "is expected to boost consumption."
SEA gave no base figure for the 30% reduction. Back-calculated, the forecast implies about 2.7 million tons in 2025/26.
India cut the crude sunflower oil import duty to zero
A government notification cut the basic customs duty on crude sunflower oil to zero from 10% on Sept 24, per ANI. Duties on crude palm oil and crude soybean oil dropped to 5% from 10%. Refined sunflower oil's duty now stands at 22.5%, down from 32.5%.
ANI also reported that the finance ministry's August report put consumer food inflation at 5.52% in July, up from 5.32% in June.
Soyoil imports forecast to fall 10.7% as sunflower rises
Mallick expects the jump in sunflower oil to cut soyoil purchases 10.7% to 5 million tons in the marketing year that starts Nov 1. SEA gave no base for that figure either, though the arithmetic points to roughly 5.6 million tons this year.
Palm oil imports should stay steady near 8 million tons.
Mallick flagged that rising prices on El Niño supply worries could still affect purchases. Eddy Martono of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association suggested on Tuesday that palm oil could trade at a premium to soy oil in 2027, per Reuters.
He pointed to El Niño risk for output and climbing biodiesel demand in Indonesia, the top exporter.
Mallick puts total vegetable oil imports at 16.5 million to 17 million tons in 2026/27, largely steady. A weak rapeseed crop could add 1 million tons. Rajasthan, which grows nearly half of India's rapeseed, got 22% less rain than average in the June-September monsoon.
Russian sunflower oil shipments to India are forecast to fall
Russian shipments to India should fall to 1.1 million tons this year from 1.5 million, Reuters reported on Thursday. Sodrugestvo Group is one of Russia's top three sunflower oil producers. Its trading head, Kyrylo Tyshkevych, said port bottlenecks limit what Russia can ship even with Indian demand strong.
Russian and Ukrainian attacks on Black Sea ports in recent weeks have disrupted loading of grains and vegetable oils, per the same Reuters report. SEA data reported by Reuters showed India's August sunflower oil imports fell 36% to 160,639 tons, against the ~292,000 a month that 3.5 million would require.
A New Delhi-based dealer with a global trade house told Reuters in mid-September that war disruption was already pushing refiners toward soy oil.
Ukraine is the world's second-largest sunflower oil supplier. Its mills crush ~600,000 tons of seed a month from October to March, per Reuters. A Ukrainian exporter who declined to be named expects the pace to halve this year as mills struggle to ship the oil.
