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Informist, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025

 

--Sunvin CEO Bajoria: India palm oil output seen rising to 1 mln tn by 2030

--CONTEXT: Sunvin Group CEO Sandeep Bajoria's comments in interview

--Sunvin CEO Bajoria: India's import of soyoil from China a new development

--Sunvin CEO Bajoria: Globally, 24% of vegetable oil goes in making biofuels

 

By Taniva Singha Roy and Abhijit Doshi

 

MUMBAI - "The crushing mills are themselves being crushed," Sandeep Bajoria, a leading expert on the edible oil sector, sums up the current scenario in the domestic industry. With the government pushing for ethanol as a biofuel blending medium to curb consumption and import of fossil fuels, a byproduct generated in the process has posed a major challenge for the oilseed sector, he said. This byproduct, Distillers' Dried Grains with Solubles, or DDGS, is a cheaper source of poultry and cattle feed than the normally used soybeans and maize. This is denting demand for oilmeals, said Bajoria, chief executive officer of Sunvin Group, a consulting company which provides services for the oilseeds industry, including trading, selling, logistics, exports, and imports.

 

The government has been encouraging the production of ethanol from corn, which generates DDGS in the process. "DDGS is giving direct competition to the oil mills, which is why oilseed processing sector is finding it tough because their meals are not selling at proper price as DDGS is too cheap," said Bajoria in an interview with Informist.

 

To improve the demand for oilmeals as animal feed, millers need to reduce its price, and if they do so, they will also have to reduce the seed price to make it economically viable. But the government is already buying oilseeds at the minimum selling price, he said.

 

Recently, many countries have started adopting the biofuel movement to promote the production and use of biofuels, but it has fuelled the food versus fuel debate. "In Brazil, the mandate was B14-B15, which sucks off 400,000 tonnes of oil, and they are also willing to produce about 1.76 billion gallons of biodiesel from Jan. 1, 2026. Meanwhile, Indonesia is already B40 now, and they are trying to pump about B45 next year. All these mandates are leading to a chunk of vegetable oil being taken for converting into biofuel and that's why the worldwide availability of vegetable oil for food consumption is not increasing, which should ideally increase every year," said Bajoria.

 

Elaborating on the impact of the biofuel movement on India, Bajoria said, "India, one of the largest importers of vegetable oil, is finding it difficult to import as the availability of oil is not as easy as it used to be. Since India depends mostly on imports to meet its edible oil requirement, around 16 million tonnes of oil is needed to be imported, even by paying a higher price. The prices of vegetable oil are also going up because of the diversion of biofuel."

 

Around 23-24% of the total vegetable oil across the world is used to make biofuels, he said, adding, "It's a very big chunk."

 

India is one of the world's largest importers of edible oil, particularly palm oil and soyoil. To reduce its import dependency, the country is pushing to expand its palm oil cultivation area to 1 million hectares by 2025-26, as per the National Mission on Edible Oils. Bajoria said domestic production of palm oil is likely to be 1.0 million tonnes by 2030. India currently produces about 350,000-400,000 tonnes of palm oil per year.

 

Further, Bajoria assured there will be no shortage of edible oil during the festival season, as imports have increased to roughly about 1.4-1.5 million tonnes recently.

 

In addition to importing palm oil and soyoil from several countries, India has recently imported 150,000 tonnes of soyoil from China. Asked if this trend will continue, Bajoria said, "China is a very opportunistic market. China wants to sell when it has extra oil in its hands and when ample soybean crushing is happening. And at that time, it tries to sell $15-$20 per tonne below the Argentina price."

 

"Last year also, they sold some quantity (of soyoil), but it's a relatively new thing. It didn't happen over many years. It just started from last year and this year the quantity is big. The total quantity imported from China may go up to 250,000 tonnes spread over till December."

 

India imports whichever oil is the cheapest, said Bajoria. Currently, palm oil is cheaper, so India has been placing orders for the oil. Imports of palm oil in June were around 850,000-870,000 tonnes, he said.

 

The government had on May 30 cut the import duty on palm oil to 10% from the earlier 20%, but prices did not come down after the announcement. This is because prices were already reduced 15-20 days before that decision as there were rumours in the market about the notification, Bajoria said. Further, the import duty cut led to foreign suppliers increasing rates, which is why domestic market prices did not fall much, he added.

 

On the government's Atmanirbhar Bharat goal, Bajoria said, "Atmarnirbhar Bharat was the slogan which the country wanted to pursue but in reality we are too far from it."

 

The government is concentrating on becoming self-sufficient in only palm oil, he said. Soybean production has been around 9-12 million tonnes for the past 25 years, and it is difficult to increase beyond that as it is not possible to raise the area under cultivation. And unless productivity is increased, attaining self-sufficiency in edible oil is not possible, he said.  

 

Bajoria made a specific suggestion to increase self-sufficiency in edible oils. He points out that every year, India's oil consumption increases by 700,000-800,000 tonnes. So, production should be increased by at least that many tonnes and imports should be kept constant at 16.0 million tonnes. That way, India will at least be self-sufficient to meet the incremental oil demand from domestic sources. Local production, which is around 10.0 million tonnes, should be increased to 14.0 million tonnes by 2030, Bajoria said.  End

 

US$1 = INR 87.07

 

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

 

 

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