The shortage of sunflower offers leads to an increase in purchase prices in Ukraine

Purchase prices for sunflower in Ukraine are increasing against the backdrop of a shortage of offers from producers and an increase in export prices for sunflower oil and meal.

Following soybean oil prices, sunflower oil export prices for delivery to Black Sea ports rose another $10-15/t during the week to $810-820/t, despite lower demand from India and stable palm oil prices.

Demand prices for sunflower meal with delivery to Black Sea ports for the week increased by another $6-8/t to $215-216/t for non-granulated meal and $220-224/t for granulated meal, responding to the increase in feed prices grain, in particular corn.

Purchase prices for sunflower with an oil content of 46% rose by UAH 500-700/t during the week to UAH 17,500-18,000/t (with VAT) or $370-395/t (without VAT) with delivery to the factory, but for large batches processors offer a bonus.

The export demand prices for sunflower also increased slightly and reached $450-460/t at DAP Bulgaria.

According to Trading Economics, the average price of sunflower oil delivered to buyers during the week was $857/t, while quotes for soybean oil in Chicago rose 2.4% and palm oil in Malaysia rose 1.3%.

4.6 million hectares of the projected 5.5 million hectares (5.3 million hectares in 2023) have already been sown with sunflowers in Ukraine, which exceeds last year's pace, and weather conditions favor the development of crops.

According to Ukroliyaprom, sunflower oil export volumes already exceed pre-war indicators, which indicates an increase in seed processing at domestic enterprises. Thus, in 2023/24 MR, the export of sunflower oil increased compared to the corresponding period of the previous season by 17.9% to 4.4 million tons, meal – by 27.8% to 3.5 million tons, while the export of sunflower decreased by 83.7% to 289.6 thousand tons.

Reducing the export of seeds helps to increase the processing and export of products with high added value. We will remind that the USDA estimates the production of sunflower oil in Ukraine at 6.1 million tons.