China: a promising market for Black Sea sunflower oil

(Adapted from the 7th International Conference BlackSeaOil, Steven Li Feng​ Zhou, Senior trader, ECTP, China)

The size of China’s vegetable oils market approximates 40 MMT, including 36 MMT used for food purposes. In recent years, it has been growing at an annual rate of 1-2%. The structure of vegetable oils consumption is as follows: soybean oil – 42%, rapeseed oil – 24%, palm oil – 13%, sunflower oil – below 3%.

In MY 2018/19, soybean imports and crush were reduced under the impact of the African Swine Fever’s consequences that pushed up imports of vegetable oils such as palm oil (+1 MMT) and sunflower oil (+0.2 MMT).

The top suppliers of sunflower oil to China are Ukraine and Russia. In the first seven months of this year, these countries shipped 488.5 KMT and 126.6 KMT to the country, respectively, reports UkrAgroConsult.

In the 2018/19 season, China will import a total 940 KMT of sunflower oil.

With regard to the 2019/20 outlook, September’s USDA report predicts sunflower oil imports to China to gain 10% from MY 2018/19 and reach 1.1 MMT (+0.1 MMT) – this will be accounted for by supplies from Ukraine and Russia.