India's vegetable oil imports rose eight% to 13.83 lakh tonnes in December 2025, the second month of the 2025-26 oil year, from the year-ago period, on a sharp rise in soyabean oil and sunflower oil shipments, industry body SEA said on Tuesday.
The world's biggest vegetable oil importer had bought 12.75 lakh tonnes, including edible and non-edible oils, in December 2024.
However, in the first two months of the ongoing 2025-26 oil year (November-October), total vegetable oil imports remained lower by 12% to 25.67 lakh tonnes from the year-ago period.
1 January 2026
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Overall, palm oil imports declined by 20% to 5.07 lakh tonnes in December 2025 from 6.32 lakh tonnes in the year-ago period, the Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
There was zero import of RBD Palmolein during December, while crude palm oil imports rose to 5.03 lakh tonnes from 3.26 lakh tonnes in the same period.
Sunflower oil imports jumped by 32.19% to 3.49 lakh tonnes in December from 2.64 lakh tonnes in the year-ago period.
Soyabean oil imports also rose 20.23% to 5.05 lakh tonnes from 4.20 lakh tonnes in the said period.
Non-edible oil imports declined to 21,000 tonnes in December 2025 from 45,764 tonnes in the year-ago period.
Indonesia and Malaysia are the major suppliers of palm oil.
Sowing of rabi or winter oilseed crops increased 3.04% to 99.30 lakh hectare as of January 2, compared with 93.27 lakh hectare a year earlier.
Total edible stocks stood at 17.50 lakh tonnes as of January 1, higher than 16.21 lakh tonnes in the previous month.
