A total of 12 analyses were carried out on sludge palm oil (SPO) to determine the most suitable parameters for characterizing this oil. The parameters usually employed for characterizing palm oil are free fatty acid (FFA) content, slip melting point, moisture and impurity content, iodine value (IV) and colour. All these parameters were found to be unsuitable for characterizing SPO as the variation were very high. Based on our studies on characterizing SPO, we conclude that DOBI value of 1.7 was the most suitable parameter as 85% of the SPO samples analysed had DOBI values below 1.7.