INTERVIEW-India's vegoil import stockpile to double -Mistry

KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 (Reuters) - India, the world's second biggest vegetable oil importer, will slow purchases of palm and soyoil as its import inventories have doubled to 500,000 tonnes now from three months ago, a top analyst said on Tuesday.

Dorab Mistry, head of vegetable oils trading at Indian conglomerate Godrej International, said overall vegetable oil stockpiles in the South Asian nation would rise by the end of 2008/2009 in Oct to 1.2 million tonnes from 1 million now.

Stocks at 1.2 million tonnes are sufficient for a full month of consumption, Mistry said, a significant figure as India's stockpiles have traditionally been very low. India does not publish statistics on vegetable oil inventories.

"Buying has been strong for the past few months because, by and large, prices of palm oil have been attractive and also the fear of import duties coming in later on in the year," Mistry told Reuters in an interview ahead of a key palm oil conference in the Malaysian capital.

"In March the strength of the imports will slow because we have the incoming rapeseed crop. I believe it will be 6.4 million tonnes from 4 to 4.5 million tonnes last year, which is significantly better."

India grows two oilseed crops, mainly soybean and groundnut in winter, and rapeseed and groundnut in the summer. The rapeseed crop is much higher this year due to its larger acreage, traders have said.

India imports roughly half of the 11 million tonnes of vegetable oils it consumes annually. It buys refined palm oil from Malaysia and crude palm oil from Indonesia as well as soyoil from Brazil and Argentina.

On China's moves to spend an extra $10 billion to bulk up its commodity reserves by buying excess supplies of resources and imports of the edible oils, grains and materials it does not have, Mistry said the impact on palm oil markets would be minimal.

"There has not been active, or rather increased buying of palm oil, from China. They are mostly focusing on soyoil and rapeseed oil at home," Mistry said. "Neverthless, it will be a positive tone for the global vegetable oil complex." (Reporting by Niluksi Koswanage; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)