NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India's vegetable oil imports fell 26 percent in May, a fifth straight month of drops, as stocks piled up at ports and refineries following higher overseas purchases in the first quarter of the season from November.

Imports of palm oil by India, the world's top importer of cooking oils, dropped 37 percent on the year while soyoil imports more than doubled, fed by lower global prices due to high soybean output in Latin America and China's decision to halt imports from Argentina over a trade spat.

India's imports last month were in line with a Reuters survey that forecast purchases at 558,125 tonnes.

May imports dropped 26 percent from a year earlier to 558,765 tonnes, B.V. Mehta, executive director of the Solvent Extractors' Association, said in a statement.

But purchases in the first seven months of the current oil year from November fell four percent to 4.8 million tonnes from the same period a year earlier, he said.

India's soyoil imports more than doubled to 110,150 tonnes, after China, the world's top soyoil importer, halted shipments in March from Argentina, the world's biggest exporter, in retaliation for anti-dumping steps the South American country imposed on some Chinese manufactured goods.

China, which has turned to the United States since then, last week bought 800,000 tonnes of soyoil from the US.

Mehta said May palm oil imports declined 37 percent to 599,410 tonnes from a year ago.

India buys mainly palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia and a small quantity of soyoil from Argentina and Brazil.