Plant shutdowns and falling sunflower oil prices are putting pressure on sunseed prices in Ukraine
Sunflower prices in Ukraine declined as power outages slowed processing and Argentina boosted global supply. Lower sunflower oil prices and weak demand from India added pressure, while Bulgarian imports increased EU competition. Rising seasonal oilseed supplies and softer vegetable oil markets are expected to keep sunseed and oil prices under downward pressure.
Power supply problems in southern Ukraine have led to the shutdown of several factories, and news of Bulgaria purchasing sunseed from Argentina has increased pressure on Black Sea sunflower oil prices, causing sunseed prices in Ukraine to decline slightly after reaching a seasonal high last week.
The decrease in prices for sunflower oil delivered to India during the week by $10/t to $1,400/t CIF Mumbai and the offer prices of Russian sunflower oil by $10-30/t to $1,280/t FOB led to a drop in demand prices for sunflower oil in Ukraine by $10/t to $1,270-1,280/t delivered to ports.
The biggest pressure on prices is the increased supply of sunseed from Argentina on the Indian market and in Bulgaria, which plans to process Argentine sunseed, which will increase supplies to the EU.
During the week, purchase prices for sunseed in Ukraine decreased by 500 UAH/t to 29,500-30,500 UAH/t or 600-620 $/t excluding VAT (for 50% oil content) with delivery to the plant, as processors contracted large volumes of raw materials last week due to high prices, while some plants stopped purchases and acceptance due to lack of electricity, which reduced competition. It is worth recalling that a year ago, sunflower prices were at the maximum level of the season of 27,500-28,500 UAH/t, and began to decline from the end of February.
The National Association of Grain Producers of Bulgaria (NAG) said that large-scale imports of Argentine sunseed, which will make up about ⅙ of the total production, will significantly increase the pressure on the domestic market. In addition, the question arises about the safety of the raw materials supplied. According to the head of the association, Ilya Prodanov, currently there are about 600 thousand tons of unsold Bulgarian sunseed in the warehouses of producers.
In Argentina, as of February 21, sunseed has been threshed on 3.1 million hectares or 38% of the area, and production forecasts remain at 6.2-7.2 million tons compared to 5.2 million tons in 2025 and 4.5 million tons in 2024.
We predict that this season, in early March, vegetable oil prices will begin to decline again and the seasonal supply of oilseeds will increase, which will lead to a drop in sunseed prices.
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Source : Ukr Agro Consult
