Exports of Russian sunflower oil in the 2023/24 MY (September – August) may reach a record level. This is evidenced by data from a survey of market participants conducted by the OleoScope agency.
Thus, according to estimates from the Efko Group, sunoil production in the current MY will be 7.3 mln tonnes, and 4.3 mln tonnes of Russian sunflower oil will be sold to foreign markets.
“At the beginning of the season, the pace of processing and export was slightly lower than planned, primarily due to the prevailing weather conditions in the Black Sea and a temporary ban on the import of vegetable oils to Iran. However, high stocks of the oilseed and fairly favorable weather conditions allow us to reach the planned result by the end of the season,” the company said.
The Rusagro Group expects to produce 7.3-7.5 mln tonnes of sunflower oil, and exports are expected to reach 4.7-4.9 mln tonnes.
“The numbers could be higher, but difficulties with shipments of final products are still preventing the industry from fully realizing the high potential,” the group commented.
OleoScope assumes that Russia will be able to export about 5 mln tonnes of sunflower oil. Sunflower oil production estimates from OleoScope for 2023/24 MY are at 7.44 mln tonnes.
At the same time, the Rusagro Group of Companies added that Russia previously traditionally occupied the Black Sea and Mediterranean markets, and Ukraine mainly supplied oil to India and China.
“Now there is an exchange of these markets. In the last two years, Ukraine, due to limited capabilities for loading large ships, has been working on the Black Sea market, primarily Turkey, and Russia has been restructuring to India, China and other distant markets. But these processes take time. There is a critical shortage of deep-water ports. The port infrastructure needed to load large ships with oil for transport to distant markets is underdeveloped. As a result, the Black Sea market is still a little overloaded, which partly causes an additional discount for sunflower oil,” the company believes.