India, which is the world’s main importer of sunflower oil, gets most of it from the Black Sea region via the Red Sea. But due to Houthi attacks, shipowners are sending ships from Europe to Asia bypassing Africa, which increases the time and cost of delivery.
Prices for Argentine sunflower oil are now lower than for Black Sea oil, so India may shift to buying oil from South America.

According to the brokerage Sunvin Group, amid rising freight costs, the prices of sunflower oil in India exceeded the prices of soybean oil for the first time in a year. “In recent months, the import of sunflower oil has been stable due to the better price for it than for soybean oil, but after the rise in freight prices, this advantage has been lost,” the company’s experts said.
Currently, imported crude sunflower oil in India is offered at $943/t CIF (cost, insurance and freight) for delivery in February, while crude soybean oil is offered at $935/t and crude palm oil at $933/t.

Two months ago, the price of sunflower oil was 120 $/t lower than soybean oil, which prompted Indian buyers to increase imports of sunflower oil.
In December, India doubled the imports of sunflower oil to 260.85 thsd tonnes compared to November, and soybean oil – by 1.8% to 152.65 thsd tonnes, although in 2022/23 MY the average monthly imports of soybean oil amounted to 306 thsd tonnes.

If the current price trend continues, in January, imports of sunflower oil to India may decrease to 225 thousand tons, and soybean oil may increase to 230 thousand tons, according to analysts of GGN Research.

India imports palm oil from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, and soybean and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine and Russia.
In 4 months of 2023/24 MY, Ukraine increased exports of high oleic sunflower oil by 18% to 120 thsd tonnes compared to the same period of the previous season, which is still below the pre-war level. The supply of the oil to China increased almost threefold to 21 thsd tonnes compared to the same period of 2022/23 MY.

According to the results of 2022/23 MY, China became the main buyer of Ukrainian high oleic oil, having ousted Spain from the first place, and in the current season it still remains the leader. Spain and Romania took the second and third places, having purchased 20 thsd tonnes of the oil each, with Spain increasing the purchases by 22% and Romania – by 2.6 times. But in general, the exports of high oleic oil to the EU decreased by 13% in 4 months of 2023/24 MY.

“There has been a drop in domestic consumption of approximately 47 percent,” Juan Vilar, an international agronomic analyst and chief executive of consultancy Vilcon who led the study, told Olive Oil Times. “Per capita olive oil consumption has fallen approximately 5.5 kilograms.”He added that Spain is far from the only country that has seen olive oil consumption fall due to higher prices and lower availability. By his calculations, per capita global consumption of olive oil has declined from 420 to 320 grams per annum.“On a global level, this is the first time that olive oil has not reached one percent of total animal and vegetable fat consumption,” Vilar said. In a typical year, olive oil makes up three percent of the category.However, the study demonstrates that consumers are not shifting away from the olive oil category, with the researchers seeing an 11 percent decrease in the sale of other refined edible oils, such as corn oil or sunflower oil, paired with far more moderate price increases.“There is insufficient olive oil available to cover demand,” Vilar said. “But the demand has not fallen much. The number of units of olive oil sold remains very similar to previous years.”“For consumers to remain loyal to the olive oil category, they are consuming less olive oil and buying smaller formats,” he added,This finding was reflected in the study, which found the most significant drop in extra virgin olive oil sales in containers of one liter or more, with many supermarkets abandoning the typical five-liter containers previously sold.“Consumers have also been moving down the category list,” Vilar said, with habitual extra virgin olive oil buyers shifting to virgin and virgin purchasers changing to refined olive oil categories.“Lastly, sales of olive pomace oil have grown by approximately 160 percent during 2023,” Vilar said.

Usually, Spain exports 80 percent of the olive pomace oil it produces. However, the low production levels mean about 70 percent of olive pomace oil production was sold domestically in 2023. “People don’t want to leave the olive oil category,” he said.Looking ahead, Vilar said he expects prices at origin to remain stable for the time being. “If prices rise, it will not be by much, but they will not fall,” he said.The three main factors affecting the prices will be whether the harvest meets expectations, the evolution in consumer demand and the weather during the spring and summer; climatic conditions in Andalusian olive groves in May will go a long way in determining the trajectory of prices for the rest of 2024.

he Port of Constanta in Romania reported a 50% year-on-year increase in grain exports last year due to a surge in shipments from Ukraine and ongoing European Union (EU)-funded infrastructure projects, Reuters reported the port authority as saying.

Located on the Black Sea, the port exported 36M tonnes of grain in 2023 with Ukraine accounting for 14M tonnes – almost 40% of the total, the port authority told Reuters.

Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, and Constanta had become Kyiv’s largest alternative export route since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with grains arriving by road, rail and barge across the Danube, Reuters wrote.

However, its transit volumes had fallen since last July when Russia repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s river ports, the report said.

In August, Ukraine had created a shipping corridor from its own ports along the western Black Sea coast near Romania and Bulgaria, shortly after Russia withdrew from a 2022 UN-brokered Black Sea grain export deal, Reuters wrote.


At the time of the 10 January report, Ukraine said it had exported 10M tonnes of agricultural goods through the corridor...

Soyabean prices dropped more than 60c/bushel (bu) in the week before the 15 January report.

Trade sources reported offers of Brazilian cargoes for February shipment were at a premium of 85-95 c/bu on the day of the report and at 85 c/bu the previous Friday, compared with 140-145 c/bu over March CME futures CFR China the previous week.

For other shipment windows, CFR China premiums for Brazil also dropped – although to a lesser degree – with offers for March reported at a 55-60 c/bu premium over March futures on the day of the report, compared with 80-90 c/bu the previous week, while prices for other months also fell between 8 c/bu and 23 c/bu during the period.

As in previous years, the start of the soyabean harvest was a major factor driving prices lower in Brazil as Chinese...