August 20 2003, 11:49

Russia increased sunflower area this season

According to web-server Product.ru, sown areas of sunflower in Russia have considerably exceeded the level of last year. The area has totalled 5.27 million hectares against 4.12 million hectares in 2002. The substantial increase in sown area has been fostered by high profitability of this crop over 3 recent years, and, partially, the need of re-planting killed winter grains.

According to forecasts of the Institute for Agrarian Market Situation (IKAR), owing for weather conditions in this year, the yields of sunflower may be 5 to 10 percent lower than in 2002. However, the drop in yields will be offset by the increase in sown areas. The crop thus might reach 4.1 to 4.45 million tonnes in bunker weight, being significantly above the 3.68 million tonnes, collected in 2002.

As regards the outlook for seeds export in the new marketing year, with consideration of the export duty, it will depend on the main trends in the Russian and world oilseeds markets and correlation of prices. According to IKAR analysts, Russia's potential for seeds exports will increase slightly, due to increase in demand for raw material on the part of local producers of sunflower oil, the market of which has been lately growing by intense rates. Russian producers of sunoil have been actively developing export sales of their product and the next season will not be exception in this respect. However, in further perspective the exports of sunoil will become limited by capacity of operational filling facilities in Russian ports.

According to IKAR, starting prices for new crop sunseeds in September might be by 300 to 400 roubles per tonne lower than prices in the same period last year (30 roubles = $1). Should weather conditions remain favourable, the downward price tendency may further consolidate in the period of mass harvest (mid-October) and mass arrival of seeds in the market.