Ukraine and Russia provided for 76 pct of world sunflower oil supply

World sunflower oil trade in Q4 2018/19 declined seasonally, at the same time exceeding last year's level due to a combination of high product supply in major supply countries and strong demand from key importers, the APK-Inform consultancy reports.

"Under Oil World's estimates, in 2018/19 world exports of sunflower oil grew to 11.49 mln t, 15% higher from 2017/18," the report says.

Record volumes of sunflower oil were exported by Ukraine — 6.04 mln tons, 14% higher from the previous season, and by Russia — 2.7 mln t (+19.5%). Together, these countries accounted for 76% of total world exports of the product.

Experts also recorded an increase in exports of sunflower oil in 2018/19 by Argentina and Turkey — up to 0.96 mln t (+30%) and 0.44 mln t (+13%), respectively.

"As for the key importers of sunflower oil, India, still dominating among importers, slightly reduced its purchases to 2.35 mln t (-5%) against the background of the increase in palm oil imports and the growth of domestic production of soybean oil," the message says.

Iran and the South African Republic strongly increased their purchases of sunflower oil — up to 0.79 mln t (2x growth) and 0.26 mln t (+73%), respectively. Imports of the product to the EU also increased to 2.1 mln t (+28%), and to China — up to 1.04 mln t (+33%), the highest in the last five seasons.

As a reminder, in January-September 2019 sunflower oil exports from Ukraine totalled 4.1 mln t for the amount of USD 2.81 bln.