Plant shutdowns and falling sunflower oil prices are putting pressure on sunflower prices in Ukraine

Power supply problems in southern Ukraine have led to the shutdown of several factories, and news of Bulgaria purchasing sunflower from Argentina has increased pressure on Black Sea sunflower oil prices, causing sunflower prices in Ukraine to decline slightly after reaching a seasonal high last week.

The decrease in prices for sunflower oil delivered to India during the week by $10/t to $1,400/t CIF Mumbai and the offer prices of Russian sunflower oil by $10-30/t to $1,280/t FOB led to a drop in demand prices for sunflower oil in Ukraine by $10/t to $1,270-1,280/t delivered to ports.

The biggest pressure on prices is the increased supply of sunflower from Argentina on the Indian market and in Bulgaria, which plans to process Argentine sunflower, which will increase supplies to the EU.

During the week, purchase prices for sunflower in Ukraine decreased by 500 UAH/t to 29,500-30,500 UAH/t or 600-620 $/t excluding VAT (for 50% oil content) with delivery to the plant, as processors contracted large volumes of raw materials last week due to high prices, while some plants stopped purchases and acceptance due to lack of electricity, which reduced competition. It is worth recalling that a year ago, sunflower prices were at the maximum level of the season of 27,500-28,500 UAH/t, and began to decline from the end of February.

The National Association of Grain Producers of Bulgaria (NAG) said that large-scale imports of Argentine sunflower, which will make up about ⅙ of the total production, will significantly increase the pressure on the domestic market. In addition, the question arises about the safety of the raw materials supplied. According to the head of the association, Ilya Prodanov, currently there are about 600 thousand tons of unsold Bulgarian sunflower in the warehouses of producers.

In Argentina, as of February 21, sunflower has been threshed on 3.1 million hectares or 38% of the area, and production forecasts remain at 6.2-7.2 million tons compared to 5.2 million tons in 2025 and 4.5 million tons in 2024.

We predict that this season, in early March, vegetable oil prices will begin to decline again and the seasonal supply of oilseeds will increase, which will lead to a drop in sunflower prices.