Chile behind the export boom of refined sunflower oil

Buenos Aires, July 25th. The Argentine sunflower chain is living a good moment: exports of refined and fractioned sunflower oil grown 4.3 times since 2015, reaching 59,438 tons in the first half of the year versus 13,950 tons four years ago. “When soybean oil prices are getting closer to sunflower oils ones, consumers choices this last one; this is the main reason for this export boom”, opines Pablo Aldea, Trade Manager from Gente de la Pampa SA, an oilseed industry in La Pampa Province.

But is Chile the driver of the exports. Frome January to June, the border country imported 44,337 tons or 73% of the total Argentine exports. The second destination for the local oil was another bordering country, Paraguay, with 6,548 tons or 11%, and the third destination was Uruguay with 1,736 tons or 3 percent of the total exports. “Argentine exports have some advantages supplying the South American markets, while in overseas markets oil from Ukraine and Russia enter at a low cost, due to the subsidies that those industries receive”,  Mr. Aldea adds.

According to the data from Census and Statistics National Institute (INDEC), the average FOB price of the sunflower oil during the first six months of the year rounds1,056 dollar per tonne. Exports of bulk refined sunflower oil reached 13,157 tons to an average FOB price of 1,008 dollars per tonne.

The next figure, provided by RIA Consultores to www.eFarmNewsAr.com, shows how refined and fractioned sunflower oils had the better performance respect to crude oil and refined bulk oil.

Last week, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange estimated that during 2018/19 sunflower area could reach 2,0 million hectares in Argentina, the largest national area since 2008/09 campaign.