Ukraine. Sunseeds Market and Crushing Industry: S&D update, April 2023

The current season of 2022/23

The current assessment of the sunflower and soybean harvest remains at the previous level, the rapeseed harvest was re-estimated to the level of 3.57 M mt due to the increase in the harvesting area taking into account the rate of rape export.

The key export positions in the oil segment are sunflower, sunflower oil, sunflower meal, soybeans and rapeseed.

The rate of export of oilseeds remains at a high level – the estimate of the export of soybeans has been increased to 2.8 M mt, rapeseed – to 3.4 M mt.

The lag behind the rates of export of sunflower oil and sunflower meal compared to last year has decreased and is 1.2% and 5%, respectively.

2023/24 MY Forecast

Before the start of the sowing campaign, it became clear that the area under oilseeds would be larger than expected previously, oilseeds margins remains higher than that of grains:

Oilseeds areas in 2023: 

• sunflower – 5.8 M ha (5.65 M ha in March forecast)
• soybeans – 1.85 M ha (1.75 M ha)
• rapeseed – 1.4 M ha (1.75 M ha)

The current forecast for the harvest of olive crops is 21.4 M mt.

As for the distribution of oilseeds between crushing industry and exporters, UkrAgroConsult still is optimistic regarding the vegetable oils production in Ukraine. The export oilseeds is predicted to be about 8 M mt.