In 2015/2016 MY the processing volumes of sunflower seed in Ukraine broke a record and reached 11.7 million tons, up by 11% YoY.
Taking into account the fact that last season the general processing capacities in the country totaled 16 million tons per year, in 2015/2016 MY the average loading rate of oilseed processing enterprises totaled 73%, against 69% in 2014/2015 MY. Experrs forecast further increasing of the capacities in 2016/2017 MY to 18.5 million tons per year.
In 2015/2016 MY, sunflower oil production reached the record level of 4.93 million tons, up by 13% YoY. In addition, Ukraine exported record volumes of sunflower oil – 4.5 million tons (up by 16%). India and China purchased almost half of the reporting volumes – over 2 million tons, up by 3%. The supplies of Ukrainian sunflower oil to EU countries significantly increased to 1.4 million tons (up 2.3 times).
As to the forecast for 2016/2017 MY, in September analysts increased estimations of the general sunflower seed harvest to 13.9 million tons, up by nearly 2 million tons YoY. Experts have also increased the forecasts of sunflower processing in 2016/2017 MY to 13.6 million tons, the production and exports of sunflower oil – 5.7 million tons and 5.2 million tons respectively, which indicates the potential of new records in the market segment. (APK-Inform/Business World Magazine)