Following sunflower oversupply at the world market and its competitive prices, the product’s EU import during the season will go up to 0.8 mln tons compared with 0.46 mln tons in the previous season and will mark a peak level for the last 13 years.

EU countries have doubled sunflower import up to 0.28 mln tons between August and November 2016 compared with 0.12 mln tons a year earlier. Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova bought the biggest amount, mainly for re-export. Sunflower import in the EU reached 170 – 190,000 tons in December compared with only 36,000 tons in December 2015.

Sunflower processing in the EU during the season will be 7.5 mln tons (6.67) while export will be 0.5 mln tons (0.43).