Ukraine plans to prioritize edible oil exports over grain amid logistics constraints

Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy is preparing a decision to give edible oil exports priority amid limited logistics capacity. The initiative has already received support from all relevant agricultural associations, Minister of Agrarian Policy Taras Vysotskyi said during a meeting with journalists, according to Forbes Ukraine.

According to Vysotskyi, priority will be given specifically to vegetable oil as a value-added product, while meal and oilcake will be excluded from the list. Discussions with industry representatives have already been completed. The document will now be coordinated with the relevant ministries before being submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for approval. No specific timeline has been announced.

The Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC), which previously opposed granting export priority to meal and oilcake, has supported faster sunflower oil exports. UAC Deputy Chairman Mykhailo Sokolov explained that farmers are interested in ensuring that processors can sell their products abroad quickly, as they supply sunflower seeds to Ukrainian processing facilities. Moreover, transporting raw sunflower seeds requires twice as much cargo capacity as transporting processed products.

Vysotskyi noted that priority for food products is already in place under the eQueue system for road transport. However, no similar mechanism has been introduced for grains and oilseeds. The proposed decision is intended to facilitate priority handling of edible oil export shipments amid logistics constraints.

The need for these changes is driven by the challenging situation in Ukraine’s export logistics. During the first 13 days of October, Ukraine exported 1.125 mln t of agricultural products, accounting for only 50% of the required volume. Against this backdrop, the government is seeking ways to use limited logistics capacity more efficiently for exports of value-added products.

Tags: rapeseed oil, Ukraine, sunflower oil, export, soybean oil, sunseed