India’s edible oil shipments touched 16 million tonnes in 2024-25, with import costs climbing amid higher global prices
India brought in around 16 million tonnes of edible oils valued at nearly Rs 1.61 lakh crore in the 2024-25 oil marketing year, which ended in October, according to the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA).
The country’s edible oil imports in the previous marketing cycle (November 2023–October 2024) were marginally lower at 15.96 million tonnes, worth Rs 1.32 lakh crore, SEA’s latest data released on Thursday showed. The rise in import value up to 22 per cent was largely driven by firmer global prices.
India primarily sources palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, while soybean oil is imported from Argentina and Brazil.
“To bridge the gap between supply and demand, India has resorted to imports since the 1990s. In the initial period, the import volume was very low. However, in the last 20 years (2004-05 to 2024-25), import volume has increased by 2.2 times while the cost of import has gone up nearly 15 times”, the association said.
SEA added that India spent close to Rs 1.61 lakh crore (USD 18.3 billion) in 2024-25 to procure 160 lakh tonnes (16 million tonnes) of edible oils.
Over the past few years, the volume of edible oil imports has fluctuated—reaching 16.47 million tonnes in 2022-23, 14.03 million tonnes in 2021-22 and 13.13 million tonnes in 2020-21.
In the latest marketing year, refined oil imports fell to 17,37,228 tonnes from 19,31,254 tonnes a year earlier. Crude edible oil shipments, however, increased slightly to 142,73,520 tonnes from 140,31,317 tonnes in 2023-24.
Soyabean oil imports hit an all-time high of 5.47 million tonnes in 2024-25, surpassing the earlier record of 42.3 lakh tonnes set in 2015-16. Meanwhile, palm oil purchases dropped sharply to 7.58 million tonnes from 9 million tonnes, according to SEA.
