Sunflower oil becomes cheaper amid falling prices for palm and soybean oil

Yesterday, oil prices declined slightly after the previous speculative growth, despite Iran’s Saturday shelling of Israel, as the latter has not yet responded to the attack, and therefore the conflict has not escalated to open military confrontation.

June futures for Brent crude oil on the London ICE Futures exchange on Friday rose by 0.8% to $90.45 per barrel, and on Monday fell by 0.34% to $90.14 per barrel (-0.5% for the week, +4.5% for the month).

Following oil prices, palm and soybean oil prices fell, especially as the Malaysian Palm Oil Board report was more optimistic than traders expected, which increased pressure on prices.

According to the report, Malaysia in March increased in comparison with February the production of crude palm oil by 10.57% to 1.39 million tons, and exports – by 28.61% to 1.32 million tons, resulting in a 10.68% decrease in stocks to a 10-month low of 1.71 million tons.

the June futures for palm oil on the Bursa exchange in Malaysia yesterday fell by 1.86% to 4204 ringgit/t or 880 $/t (-2.2% for the week).

For 1-15 April, palm oil exports from Malaysia increased compared to the same period in March by 9.2% to 633,7 thousand tons according to the surveyor Intertek Testing Services and by 28.5% to 697,45 thousand tons according to the surveyor Amspec Agri Malaysia. After the end of Ramadan, oil production will increase.

In the April report, the USDA raised the forecast of world vegetable oil production from 222,85 to 223,17 million tons (217,88 million tons in 2022/23 MY), and lowered the forecast of palm oil imports to India and China by 0.2 million tons to 9 and 6 million tons, respectively, and its exports from Indonesia by 0.35 to 27.35 million tons.
the May futures for soybean oil in Chicago for the week fell by 5.2% to 1002 $/t (-7.2% for the month) amid increasing supply of cheap soybeans from South America. Quotes did not support even the data on the increase in soybean processing in the United States.

According to the report of the Association NOPA, in March, soybean processing in the United States amounted to a record 5.35 million tons, which exceeded analysts’ forecasts and 5.7% – the figure for March 2023 Sales of soybean oil increased compared to February by 9.5% to 840 thousand tons, which is almost equal to the level of March 2023.

According to Trading Economics, during the week the average price of sunflower oil for delivery to buyers decreased by 0.8% to 873 $/t, and in Ukraine prices fell by 5-10 $/t to 800-805 $/t with delivery to the Black Sea ports, 840-850 $/t with delivery to Bulgaria, 880-890 $/t with delivery to Italy.

amid lower forecasts of palm oil exports, the USDA raised its forecast of exports of sunflower oil from Ukraine by 0.15 to 5.9 million tons and Russia by 0.1 to 4.4 million tons due to increased imports by Egypt by 0.25 to 0.6 million tons.

Tags: sunflower oil, soybean oil, prices, palm oil