Heavy rains caused sunflower losses in western Ukraine; harvest expected at 10–10.5 MMT — analysts

Ukraine’s domestic sunflower market is seeing a price rollback due to increased seed supply and falling sunflower oil prices, which reduced speculative demand. This year’s harvest is expected to reach no more than 10–10.5 million tons, according to Grain Trade.

Analysts report that heavy rainfall led to losses in parts of western Ukraine, bringing total production below last year’s 11.5 million tons.

Amid high supply, procurement prices dropped by another 200–500 UAH/t over the past week and now stand at UAH 27,400–28,500/t ($573–595/t excluding VAT, delivered to processing plants, for 50% oil content). Some processors have cut prices after stockpiling, while others maintain higher levels to stimulate deliveries.

“Sunflower oil demand prices in Ukraine fell by another $10–20/t this week to $1,220–1,230/t (delivered to ports in November–December), losing about $40–50/t over the past two weeks amid a 10% drop in palm oil prices this month. In India, the price spread between sunflower and palm oil has widened to $200–220/t, prompting local refiners to switch back to cheaper palm oil,” the report says.