Egypt Vegetable Oil Market

Egypt is import-dependent in all three oils, in two different ways. Palm and sunflower oil are imported as oil — Egypt grows no oil palm, and its sunflowerseed crush is about 80,000 t a year. Soybean oil is imported as beans: crushers bring in about 4.2 million t of soybeans a year, roughly 70 % of it from the United States over the past five marketing years, followed by Ukraine, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and produce about 715,000 t of oil locally, so direct soybean-oil imports are only about 100,000 t.

Palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia — 65 % and 35 % of the 890,411 t cleared in 2024 (UN Comtrade via WITS); see the palm oil brief.

Subsidised supply matters to demand: ration (SMART) card holders are entitled to 1.0 litre of blended vegetable oil per beneficiary per month, sold through some 1,300 state consumer outlets and 40,000 partnered private grocers.

USDA's Cairo post puts Egypt's oilseed crushing capacity at about 9–10 million t a year, run at 55–60 %, with some plants above 60 % in late 2024 and early 2025 as foreign currency became available for bean imports. Palm oil is refined locally after arriving crude. Documented refiners and packers include Afia International (Savola Foods), Arma Group, IFFCO Egypt (Suez), Cairo Oil & Soap and United Oil Processing & Packaging (10th of Ramadan City) — profiled in the palm oil brief.

Refining steps: degumming → neutralization → bleaching (clay) → deodorization (steam distillation under vacuum). Output is specified against Codex Alimentarius CXS 19 and Egyptian standard ES 49.

Crude oil imports arrive as bulk parcel-tanker shipments at Ain Sokhna and Damietta. Refined imports more often in drums or flexitanks. Domestic distribution is by insulated road tanker (refineries → wholesale) and PET bottling (refineries → retail).

State purchases for the ration-card programme are made by public tender for soybean and sunflower oil.

Egypt Globe Group's Pelot Trading arm coordinates edible-oil import logistics: connecting origin shippers with Egyptian refiners and state tenders, plus L/C structuring, freight tank-tanker chartering, and Sokhna/Damietta tankage coordination.

Egypt Globe Group positions itself as your verified, long-term supply-chain ally: incorporated 2014 with an internal Quality Assurance division at its nucleus, ISO 9001:2015 across all divisions, and uncompromising QA verification from extraction to destination port. Every lot is tested at the loading-port laboratory and the Certificate of Analysis or Mill Test Certificate is issued before the Bill of Lading; lots outside specification are rejected at the loading port, never re-graded or renegotiated. Independent inspection by TÜV Austria, SGS, Intertek or Bureau Veritas (all ISO/IEC 17020 + 17025) is available on every shipment, laycans are run with documented NOR / SOF, and the specification is guaranteed at the port of loading under the sales contract — see inspection & quality control, trade documentation and quality & compliance. Edible-oil parcels are surveyed at load and discharge by the independent partners (FFA, peroxide value, moisture, colour, quantity by ullage) and matched to Codex CXS 19 / ES 49 before release to the refinery or the GASC tender.

• USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Egypt: Oilseeds and Products Annual, GAIN report EG2025-0013, 15 April 2025 — fas.usda.gov
• World Bank WITS (UN Comtrade), Egypt imports, HS 151190, 2024 — wits.worldbank.org

The Pelot Trading arm connects origin shippers with Egyptian refiners and state tenders. Product pages: RBD soybean oil, crude sunflower oil degummed, refined sunflower oil bottled and crude palm oil, from 100 MT, plus oilseeds as crushing feedstock from 5 MT.

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