RTRS- India's March palm oil imports fall 29 pct-trade

NEW DELHI, April 13 (Reuters) - India's palm oil imports fell more than expected in March from the previous month as crude variety purchases fell more sharply than expected on higher prices while the decline in refined oil was broadly in line with forecasts in a Reuters poll.

Importers bought 28.6 percent less total palm oil in March with crude palm oil purchases at 278,696 tonnes, down 22.5 percent from the previous month, data from the Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) showed on Friday.

Refined palm oil imports fell 38.6 percent as buying eased when New Delhi failed to introduce an anticipated import duty to counter export tax changes by Indonesia.

India, the world's No. 1 importer of cooking oils, buys mainly palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia and a small quantity of soyoil from Argentina and Brazil.

"Palm oil imports fell as import duty tinkering by the government didn't take place, while high prices also prompted the lower monthly buy," said Prasoon Mathur, a senior analyst with Religare Commodities.

In March, Malaysia's lower stocks and higher export demand pushed the delivered cost at Indian ports of crude palm oil up by 5-10 percent, a Mumbai-based trader said.

Crude palm oil cost around $1,130 per tonne on a delivered basis to Indian ports in March, higher than $1,073 per tonne in February. Global benchmark crude palm oil prices on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange were up 0.5 percent at 3,578 ringgit ($1,170) per tonne on Friday. [ID:nL3E8FD4TS]

India imported 186,788 tonnes of refined palm oil in March, down from 304,048 tonnes in February.

Refined palm oil imports had almost trebled in February from January as buyers scrambled to stock up ahead of the March 16 budget, but dropped off in March as the world's top vegetable oil buyer did nothing to curb overseas purchases. Indonesia, the world's top palm oil producer, altered taxes in October 2011 to make exports of refined oil more attractive than those of crude palm oil to promote its downstream industry.

The higher than expected fall in palm oil purchases brought the country's total vegetable oil imports to 727,706 tonnes in March, down 17 percent from February, the Mumbai-based trade body said.

A Reuters survey had forecast average total vegetable oil imports of 847,857 tonnes in March. [ID:nL3E8FA4DH]

Soyoil imports rose 28.1 percent over February as local supply has been exhausted, while sunflower oil imports were down 6.4 percent from the previous month as demand cooled off when the winter wedding season -- a time of feasting and frying -- ended. [$1 = 3.0670 ringgits]