Ukraine has a chance to regain the status of the world's largest exporter of sunflower oil already in the new 2026/27 marketing year. In the USDA's November report, the Ukrainian export forecast was left unchanged - at the level of 5 million tons, and the estimate for Russia was reduced by 250 thousand tons, to 4.85 million tons.
If the forecast is confirmed, Ukrainian supplies will exceed Russian supplies by approximately 150,000 tons. Even in the USDA's October report, the first place was given to Russia with a projected export of 5.1 million tons, so the assessment changed to the opposite in just a month.
Why the forecast for Russia worsened
USDA analysts reduced the estimate of the sunflower harvest in Russia by 600 thousand tons - to 20.4 million tons, and the forecast of sunflower oil production was reduced by 248 thousand tons, to 7.558 million tons. Ukrainian indicators were left unchanged: sunflower harvest is expected at 13 million tons, and oil production - 5.418 million tons.
In the 2025/26 season, Ukraine lost the world leadership in this export for the first time in 20 years, giving way to Russia: Ukrainian supplies amounted to 4.036 million tons against 4.2 million tons in Russia. Before that, Ukraine held the championship from the 2005/06 marketing year.
Earlier, the association "Ukroliyaprom" stated that Russia was deliberately striking the enterprises of the oil and fat industry of Ukraine, trying to destroy this export-oriented industry. Despite this, since the beginning of the full-scale war, ten new oil plants have been built in the country, although the available capacities are not fully loaded: from the total processing capacity of about 23 million tons, only about 17 million tons of raw materials are actually processed.
In October, the total shipments of agricultural products from Ukraine increased by 0.6% compared to September, to 3.05 million tons: the reduction in grain exports compensated for the increase in supplies of oil crops and their processing products.
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