JAKARTA (Reuters – Indonesia has taken custody of at least 81,000 litres worth of cooking oils bound for East Timor. This is as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to impose a ban of exports of crude palm oil or its derivatives.

Eight shipping containers containing cooking oil, and other products were taken from Tanjung Perak port in Surabaya, Java on April 28. The trade ministry stated that the ship had “deceived authorities” by failing to list cooking oil as an export declaration.

A director of the trade ministry, Sihard Hadjopan Pohan said that those found guilty of violating the ban on cooking oil export could be sentenced to up to five years in prison, as well as a fine up of 5 billion rupees ($341,997). Officials didn’t name either the vessel or its owner.

In an effort to curb rising prices at home, Indonesia, which is the largest palm oil producer in the world, has stopped exports of palm oil crude and refined products since last month.

Global vegetable oil markets have been rattled by the ban on exports. They were already in trouble after the destruction of large amounts of sunflower oil supplies due to war in Ukraine. The world’s largest vegetable oil market is comprised of more than one third of its palm oil. However, Indonesia makes up around half of all the supply of palm oils.

Airlangga Hararto, the chief economist minister of the Philippines has declared that the export ban will be in force until the bulk cooking oil price drops to 14,000 Rupees per litre. Trade Ministry data indicated that bulk cooking oils were being sold at 16.600 rupiah a litre on Thursday.($1 = 14,620.0000 rupiah)