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The Soyoil CFR India prices launched September 1, 2025 by Fastmarkets are an extension of our existing Soyoil India CFR prices to cover months 3,4, 5 and 6 of the forward curve, in addition to months 1 and 2, which were already assessed.
Fastmarkets Soyoil CFR India prices are based on 10,000-20,000 tonne quantities of soybean oil on a CFR basis at the West Coast of India ports.
Soy oil or soybean oil is an oil product made by extraction from soybeans. Globally, this commodity has become of growing importance as a feedstock in biofuels production, but in India it is still mainly used in food.
The extension to soyoil prices were launched at short notice to meet customer demand for more information and visibility on the forward curve, helping buyers and sellers make more informed decisions and manage risk.
Fastmarkets believes it is the right time to extend these prices, given the crucial and growing role India plays in global vegetable oil markets.
India is the third largest consumer of vegetable oils in the world, consuming over 11% of the world’s vegetable oils in the 2024/2025 marketing year, according to the latest USDA reports.
Soybean oil is further predicted to account for 34% of global soybean oil imports in MY2025/26, having accounted for 38% of global imports in 2024/25.
To ensure the country’s food security amid rapid economic and population growth, the Indian government imposes measures such as import duties on vegetable oils, as well as the setting of a domestic Minimum Support Price (MSP) to help farmers make informed planting decisions.
Since 2021 the Indian government has been using import duties on soybean oil as well as other strategic commodities to protect local consumers against market price volatility and to ensure food security as well as protect local production.
Indian import duties on refined soybean oil fell to 17.5% from 32.5% in 2021 and on crude soybean oil to 5.5% from 7.5% in 2023 as a result, according to USDA data.
With growing interest in the Indian soybean oil market both domestically and internationally, Fastmarkets believes it is the right time to extend price assessments to further months along the forward curve to increase transparency and visibility in the market for all participants.
Increased transparency on forward prices should allow participants to make better informed decisions and planning, as well as provide instruments to manage their risk exposure.
All participants in the Indian soybean oil market should be interested in the launch, as well as those considering entering it.
This includes traders, crushing plants, food processing companies, oleochemical companies, feed producing companies and government agencies involved in the market.
It also includes importers and exporters such as Latin American and Black Sea soybean crushers, India’s soyoil exporters and the domestic food and pharma sector and feed producers.
India’s rapid economic rise is projected to continue with around 6.3% annual growth through the mid-2020s – one of the fastest rates among major economies.
Combined with around 1% annual population growth expected over the next decade, India would be cemented as the world’s largest importer of vegetable oils.
Soybean oil is already India’s second largest imported vegetable oil following palm oil, with annual imports ranging between 3-5 million mt over the past 3 years.
South America has been the primary source of these imports, with Indian government data showing it imported 2.3 million tonnes of soybean oil from Argentina in 2024, 56.5% of its total soybean oil imports, and 740,200 tonnes from Brazil, 17.8% of the total.
Bringing transparency through providing price assessments for six months forward can help both buyers and sellers as well as government agencies take informed decisions and manage their risk in a highly sensitive sector, with soybean oil usage in India being dominated by the food sector and little usage in the industrial sector.
For those importing or seeking to import soybean oil into India, the new price assessments will increase the transparency of a foreign market for them and should allow them to plan and trade better and more easily.
More transparency and visibility of forward prices are of particular importance in the current period of trade and political tensions, when many commodity markets have seen recent disruption by tariffs or conflict.
Fastmarkets is assessing the new price assessments in the six months forward curve in line with its existing methodology for the Month 1 and Month 2 prices for the Soyoil cfr India $/mt price (AG-SYB-0032).
As with the existing prices, these assessments are assessed by a price reporter rather than being calculated.
To make these assessments, Fastmarkets canvasses market participants from across the market throughout the day to collect key pricing information.
These include bids, offers, confirmed trade levels, tender or other contract details, pricing information from related or similar products, freight information and costs, derivative or exchange-listed contracts and government information
All input data is incorporated in the pricing process, with the most relevant bid, offer or trade information shared in pricing rationales and daily commentaries as part of the final publication process.
Fastmarkets reporters aim to collect data from a broad sample of market participants specifically involved in the buying and selling of vegoils, with a good representation of both sides of the market, including producers and consumers, as well as traders and brokers.
Data is collected from industry participants directly involved in the relevant market primarily by telephone but also by email, digital messaging or by direct submission. All data supplied to Fastmarkets is kept confidential and stored in our secure online pricing database system MInD (Market Information Database).
More information about Fastmarkets methodology is available here.
If you have any questions relating to this proposal, please contact us via the pricing.ags@fastmarkets.com email address.