Sunflower prices are rising on expectations of increased exports of oil and meal

The increase in the number of ships sent from the Black Sea ports, which have been blocked there since the beginning of the war, and the decrease in the supply of sunflowers for the 2021 harvest leads to an increase in the purchase prices of sunflowers in Ukraine.

Processors are faced with the problems of selling meal and cake, so they do not take their value into account when calculating the price of sunflower purchase, since now it is realistic to quickly sell only oil. After the dollar rose by 25% and the recovery of export purchase prices for sunflower delivered to Romania from $530-550/t to $590-610/t, the purchase prices delivered to the factory rose to UAH 14-15,000/t.

The establishment of the export of meal and meal through sea ports in the coming months will increase the competitiveness of Ukrainian processors, and they will be able to give a better price than sunflower exporters, which will stop the export of seeds abroad.

According to the State Customs Service, from August 1 to 8, 2022, Ukraine exported 90,200 tons of sunflower oil, which is 9% more than the figure for the same period in July. Turkey (35.3 thousand tons) and Poland (13.3 thousand tons) became the main buyers of domestic oil. And in general, in 2021/22 MR, the export of oil from Ukraine reached 4.19 million tons.

At the same time, sunflower exports during August 1-8 decreased by 50% compared to the same period in July to 59 thousand tons, of which 16.47 thousand tons were purchased by Bulgaria, 16.2 thousand tons by Romania and 13.5 thousand tons by Turkey. In total, Ukraine exported 1.5 million tons of sunflower in 2021/22.

The export of sunflower meal in the period August 1-8 increased compared to the same period in July by 49% to 61.9 thousand tons, of which 22.5 thousand tons were purchased by Poland, 11.97 thousand tons by Romania and 11.86 thousand tons by China. In total, in 2021/22 MR Ukraine exported 3.06 million tons of sunflower meal.