Know Soyabean Oil
Soya bean oil is the leading vegetable oil traded in the international markets, next only to palm. Palm and Soya bean oils together constitute around 68% global edible oil trade volume, with Soya bean oil constituting 22.85%.
During the last decade, volume of Soya bean oil exported has grown at the rate of 4.05%. It accounts for nearly 25% of the World's total oils and fats production.
Globally, production of Soya bean oil has grown at the rate of 5.8% during the last decade. Increasing price competitiveness, and aggressive cultivation and promotion from the major producing nations have given way to widespread soy oil growth- both in terms of production as well as consumption.
Argentina, Brazil, China and India along with US are the major contributors for the growth.
While US has a strong domestic consumption base and mostly exports Soya bean in addition to oil, Argentina and Brazil exports much of their production, mostly in the form of crude oil.
China and India, despite being producers, import Soya bean/ its derivatives to cater to their expanding consumer base. While China imports both bean and oil, India allows only imports of oil.
India is the World's largest importer of edible oils in the World. Of the total 5.0-5.5 million tons of vegetable oils imported, 1.3-1.5 million tons is Soya bean oil, imported mostly form Argentina, and followed by Brazil and US.
In addition to imports, domestic production of around 0.7-0.8 million tons takes the annual Soya bean oil consumption of the country to 2.0-2.2 million tons, with a market value of Rs 8000 crore.
Crude and Refined soyabean oils are permitted to be imported into India at an import duty of 45% and 50.4% respectively. Indian edible oil market is highly price sensitive in nature.
Global consumption shot up to 29.38 million tons in 2001-02, growing at the rate of 5.76% during the past decade. Notable upward movement in consumption in Soya oil is being seen in EU, Central Europe, Russia, Egypt, Morocco, US, Mexico, Brazil, China and India.
In India, ready (spot) markets of Indore and Mumbai serve as the 'reference' market for Soya bean oil prices. While the Indore price reflects the domestically crushed soybean oil (refined and solvent extracted), Mumbai price indicates the imported soy oil price.
Futures trading in soybean oil is also prevalent in many futures exchanges in the country, the prices of which are largely influenced by the international edible price movements (especially Malaysian palm oil and soybean oil at CBOT), soybean availability in domestic markets, demand for meal and other associated supply-demand factors of soybean and its derivatives.
Futures trading in soyabean oil would essentially serve as the right tool for hedging market-linked risk by all those in the value chain of the commodity- the soyabean producing farmers, processors, brokers, speculators, soyabean and meal traders, traders of other oilseeds and oils, etc.
