Cooking oil prices are again on the rise. Prices of soya oil that are consumed majorly by Indian urban households have gone up by almost Rs 3 per litre at the retail end while palm oil prices have moved up by Rs 2-3 per litre in the last one week, with no immediate respite in sight. The general trend in the cooking oil industry is that once any of the oils become expensive, others follow the suit.

Of the total annual consumption of 21 million tonnes of oil, soya oil constitutes around 20 per cent. The domestic demand for soya oil is met through imports as well as through local production while palm oil is only imported.

Talking to ET, Angshu Mallick, CEO & MD, Adani Wilmar said “Prices of loose soya oil may have gone up in the market but its impact will be felt in the packet oil category within next one week. This is because palm oil prices at the retail end have gone up by Rs 2-3 per litre which will have an overall impact on all categories of edible oils.”

From the beginning of October to the first week of November, cooking oil prices had come down after the government reduced import duty on oil and asked the states to keep a close vigil on stock holding. The traders were expecting soya oil prices to cool off as the domestic oilseed production has been around 12 million tonnes this Kharif season compared with 10.4 million tonnes in Kharif of 2020.

“Unfortunately, farmers are holding back the soybean stock in anticipation that prices will go up like the way it did last year when soybean seed prices had touched Rs 1 lakh per quintal. In the last one week, prices of soybean seed have shot up by Rs 5,000 per quintal to touch Rs 61,000 per quintal. This is getting reflected in the price of the cooking oil at the wholesale and retail end,” said B.V. Mehta, executive director, Solvent Extractors Association of India.

International prices, too, have started moving up which is making the landed price of edible oils costlier for the Indian consumers. “In the last one week, international prices of all categories oil – soya oil, sunflower oil and palm oil have moved up by 3 per cent-4 per cent per cent,” said Sandeep Bajoria, CEO of Mumbai-based vegetable oil broking firm Sunvin Group.