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240 October 2007, Vol. 19, No. 10 Lipid Technology
Market ReportFrank D. Gunstone
Sunflower seeds and sunflower seed oil
The four major oils are palm (36.4 million tonnes in 2006/07), soybean (35.7 million tonnes), rape (canola, 17.8 milliontonnes), and sunflower (10.9 million tonnes). The first threewere reviewed earlier this year but sunflower oil was lastreported in December 2004, so it is fully time to return tothis important oil.
Sunflower oil is interesting in that it is available in threetypes – none of which is genetically modified. The major fattyacids are saturated (mainly palmitic), oleic, and linoleicwhich are present at the levels indicated in the followingcomments. The standard commodity oil is linoleic-rich (11-13, 20-30, 60-70) but there is a valuable oleic-rich variety (9-10,80-90, 5-9) and US growers have developed a mid-oleic variety(a10, 55-75, 15-35) which is the form most commonly grownin that country. Linolenic acid is virtually absent from all ofthese which means that sunflower oil can be described as ahealthy oil rich in polyunsaturated fatty acid not requiringhydrogenation and with a good shelf life. It is much favouredin Europe as a major component of spreads. In the global sta-tistics discussed below no account is taken of these differentvarieties and all are included in the figures cited.
Sunflowers have recently been grown on about 23–24 mil-lion hectares but the forecast for 2007/08 is lower at 22.9million hectares. This is reflected in the reduced forecast forseeds and oil in the coming year (Table 1). Sunflower seeds,at close to 30 million tonnes per annum, are grown mainlyin Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and Argentina. Seed exports(around 5%) are not significant so crushing is mainly in thecountries where the seed is grown and oil at around 10 mil-lion tonnes is produced in these same countries. There ismore trade in sunflower oil (around 30% of the total oil)with Argentina, Ukraine, and Russia being the largest expor-ters and Europe and Turkey the largest importers.
Sunflower oil is an important oil in Europe. The seed isgrown mainly in France, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, andSpain. Producers of oil are the same five counties along withItaly and Netherlands and the major sunflower seed oilimporters are France, Spain, Netherlands, and Italy. DespiteUS interest in mid-oleic sunflower oil (Nu-Sun) productionand consumption are not large. Over the past five yearsthese have varied between 100 and 300 thousand tonnes.
In most years sunflower seed oil has carried the highestprice among the four major vegetable oils but the largedemand for rapeseed oil has recently pushed sunflower oilinto second place in some months. However the demand forrapeseed oil for biodiesel production has sucked in otheroils for food use in place of rapeseed oil and sunflower has
benefited from this pressure in terms of demand and price.The year 2000/01 represents a time when all vegetable oilswere traded at a very low price. Since then prices have risensteeply so that in the current year they are almost doublethat at the turn of the century (Table 2). In April 2007 theprice was US$755 and in July it rose further to US$999.Prices are considerably higher in the US market.
Table 2. Prices (US$/tonne) of sunflower seed and seed oil in Rotter-dam in selected years (Source USDA monthly report for August2007).
Year Seed Oil
2000/01 219 4282004/05 313 7032005/06 291 6352006/07 (a) 352 776
(a) average for 10 months (see text)
i 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
DOI 10.1002/lite.200700071
Table 1. Production, trade, and consumption (million tonnes) of sun-flower seed and its oil in 2005/06 and 2006/2007 with early forecastsfor 2007/08 (Source USDA monthly report for August 2007).
Sunflower seeds Sunflower oil
2005/06 2006/07 2007/08f 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08f
ProductionTotal 30.1 30.1 27.4 10.42 10.86 10.01
Argentina 3.8 3.5 4.1 1.49 1.49 1.61EU-27 6.0 6.5 4.7 2.10 2.25 1.95Russia 6.4 6.7 5.7 2.32 2.45 2.07Turkey 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.47 0.50 0.51Ukraine 4.7 5.3 4.0 1.86 1.99 1.57Other 8.5 7.3 8.1 2.18 2.18 2.30
ExportsTotal 1.5 1.7 1.5 3.83 3.77 3.24
Argentina 1.22 1.17 1.31Russia 0.62 0.61 0.43Ukraine 1.51 1.52 1.11Other 0.48 0.47 0.39
ImportsTotal 1.2 1.3 1.3 3.12 3.52 3.08
EU-27 1.23 1.32 1.10Turkey 0.41 0.41 0.41Other 1.48 1.79 1.57
CrushTotal 25.9 26.9 24.9ConsumptionTotal 29.4 30.1 28.0 9.75 10.52 10.02
EU-27 3.19 3.45 3.06Russia 1.77 1.85 1.76Turkey 0.76 0.82 0.83Ukraine 0.45 0.47 0.46India 0.62 0.64 0.70Other 2.96 3.29 3.21