Poor and delayed crushing in soybean producing states may give way to soya oil shortage in the coming days, claimed experts and traders.
"This is both crushing and consumption time for soya oil and poor crushing now will lead to shortage," said Rajesh Agrawal, spokesman and coordinator, Soybean Processors Association of India (SOPA).
According to traders and industry experts, currently domestic markets are witnessing low and inferior quality soybean supplies with high moisture content.
Heavy, incessant and irregular rains reduced the output in growing areas and also affected the quality of the soybean crop in kharif 2013, said farmers and traders.
Soybean growing regions witnessed heavy rains in August and later during harvesting time in September, said traders.
"Moisture content reduces with time but major difficulty would be dealing with low quality and damaged soybean supplies," said Kamlesh Nahta, a soybean trader.
Shortage may also push up soya oil prices in the coming days, said traders.
Also, crushers feel using inferior quality soybean crop may adversely affect the quality of soya oil and in turn its refining cost, increasing the prices further.
If supplies are not smooth it will also affect soya oil imports as market players may try to compensate the shortage by importing more vegetable oils, said experts.
India is one of the leading importers of vegetable oils in the world.
