Rising oil and meal prices support sunflower prices in Ukraine

Dry and warm weather in Ukraine accelerates sunflower harvesting, but reduces its yield potential.

 

Demand prices for sunflower oil with delivery to ports for the week increased by $10/t to $920-930/t, while at the Ukraine-Poland border prices fell to $910-915/t, although in August demand prices at the western borders exceeded those of the port. The increase in the supply of rapeseed oil in the EU significantly reduced the demand for Ukrainian oil from biodiesel producers, who actively imported it during the summer. Therefore, in August, the export of sunflower oil from Ukraine decreased by 48% compared to July to 227,000 tons, which was the lowest figure since June 2022.

 

Sunflower meal export prices for delivery to ports during the week increased by $5/t to $190-195/t on the back of rising feed wheat and corn prices. But the number of offers of rapeseed and soybean meal on the world market is increasing, so the price increase will soon stop.

 

Demand prices for sunflower are also rising, rising by another UAH 500-1,000/t during the week to UAH 20,000-20,800/t ex-factory as more factories begin processing and farmers hold back sales.

 

December soybean oil futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell 2.4% to $905/t during the week (+2.8% on the month), recovering from August's decline to multi-year lows.

 

Currently, sunflower prices exceed the price level that guarantees a margin for processors, so they will be forced to lower their purchase prices if quotations for meal and oil on the world market do not rise significantly.