29 January 2023
Kernel and MHP were the biggest Ukrainian sunflower oil exporters in Y2022
International companies - such as Bunge and ADM - on the contrary, are losing their positions among the leading Ukrainian exporters.
According to customs statistics, the total export of sunflower oil from Ukraine in 2022 amounted to 4.3 million tons, which is 16% less than in the previous year.
Despite all the difficulties in its operational and financial activities, Kernel remained the largest Ukrainian exporter of oil, at the same time, with a fairly large gap from its competitors. In 2022, Kernel's share, according to our estimates, was 19% (in total, the company exported about 800,000 tons of sunflower oil).
In recent years, Bunge Ukraine was the number two exporter of Ukrainian sunflower oil. For example, only in the first four months of the 2021/22 season (September-December 2021), a subsidiary of the Bunge group exported about 230,000 tons of oil.
After the start of full-scale russian aggression in February 2022, the operation of Bunge's main assets in Ukraine - namely the sunflower processing plant and the port terminal in Mykolaiv - was blocked (moreover, these assets were damaged by russian shelling). Another major asset of the group in Ukraine - Dnipropetrovsk MEZ - continues to operate, but is focused on the local market, so the group's sunflower oil export volumes have collapsed - in 2022, Bunge exported less than 200,000 tons of oil.
Other international companies that own sunflower processing assets in Ukraine - such as ADM, Cargill, Delta Wilmar - significantly reduced their export volumes as well.
On the other hand, the MHP company even managed to increase the volume of exports. Taking into account that for MHP sunflower processing is not the main activity, but only an auxiliary one - it ensures the production of meal and fodder in the process of poultry meat production, the company managed to maintain the volume of oil production, and exports in 2022 amounted to about 280 thousand tons, a share of the market - 6.5%.
Regarding the share of the largest exporters for the first months of the new season - from September to December 2022 - Kernel exported about 370 thousand tons or 20% of the total Ukrainian sunflower oil export, MHP - 150 thousand tons (share - 8%). Other largest exporters are Optimus (the company is traditionally one of the largest sunflower seeds crusher in Ukraine), Orexim (a Mykolaiv group of companies that previously owned the Avery port terminal, which was sold to Glencore in 2020), Oliyar and Delta Wilmar (the only representative among international companies in the TOP-5 exporters).