Sunflower processing intensified in Ukraine in October

The retention of raw material stocks by farmers continues to create difficulties for processors, limiting the supply of sunflower oil from the Black Sea region for future periods and maintaining a high level of prices in the sector. This is reported by APC-Inform

Thus, the demand prices for sunflower in Ukraine have reached a historical maximum, approaching UAH 25,500–27,000/t of SRT.

Despite this, sunflower processing volumes exceeded last year’s figures in October, amounting to approximately 1.19-1.2 million tons (+38% to September and +8% to October 2023). Such growth rates are due to the obligations of factories under export contracts for sunflower oil.

However, due to the limited sale of raw materials by farmers, many processors work almost “on wheels”, not having the usual reserves of oil for 2-3 months of work. Only those companies that use their own sunflower harvest have slightly better conditions.

Even with rising oil prices, some businesses are forced to shut down or switch to processing soybeans due to difficulties in forming a raw material base.

Since the beginning of the new season, the volume of sunflower processing has exceeded the indicators of the same period last year (September-October) by 4%, reaching 2.05 million tons. Intensive sunflower drying is also added to the active work, because due to the high moisture of raw materials, farmers strive to preserve the quality of grain. This increases the demand for drying equipment and causes additional costs, which also affects the cost of the final product – sunflower oil.

Processing volumes are expected to remain at the average level of previous years until the completion of export contracts, but the situation may change in the second half of the season. This will be influenced by the pace of sunflower sales, the final estimate of the crop, demand in foreign markets and vegetable oil prices.

It is noteworthy that in October sunflower exports from Ukraine increased for the first time in a long period and amounted to 16 thousand tons (the maximum since May 2024), of which 96% were sent to Spain.