USDA Forecast Russias Oilseeds Production Unchanged, Rise Seen In Sunflower Production In MY 2019/20

As per latest data compiled by United States Department of Agriculture ( USDA), the production of three major oilseed crops (sunflowerseed, soybeans and rapeseed) in Russia forecasts for MY 2019/20 will total 18.87 MMT and thus will actually remain at the MY 2018/19 level. The gross output of sunflowerseeds is expected to reach 12.30 MMT – just slightly below the record of the previous marketing year. The decrease is due to a small reduction of area planted (down to 8.10 million HA) while yields will remain at actually the same level as in 2018 (1.59 MT/HA).

The output of soybeans will beat the record of MY 2018/19 and amount to 4.30 MMT buoyed by the increase of area planted (up to 3.10 million HA) and yield (up to 1.48 MT/HA). Further expansion of area planted for rapeseed (up to 1.69 million HA) coupled with higher yields (1.38 MT/HA) gives grounds to expect new maximums of gross output – 2.27 MMT. In MY 2019/20, 18.45 MMT of oilseeds will be processed into oil, which is 5.4 percent above the MY 2018/19 indicator.

For sunflowerseeds, the volumes processed can grow by 3.7 percent (up to 12.18 MMT), for soybeans – by 8.1 percent (up to 4.86 MMT), for rapeseeds – by 11.5 percent (up to 1.41 MMT). Exports of oilseeds in MY 2019/20 will reach historic maximums – 1.72 MMT, which is 7.3 percent above the MY 2018/19 indicator. The major drivers of this growth will be exports of rapeseeds and soybeans to China and an active supply of rapeseeds to Belarus that started in MY 2018/2019 after the opening of a new plant for processing soybeans and rapeseed in this country by the company “Sodruzhestvo”. In MY 2019/20, Russian exports of rapeseeds could grow up to 660 TMT, exports of soybeans – up to 900 TMT. Exports of sunflowerseeds will remain at the same level as in the previous season – 160 TMT.

In MY 2019/20 ending stocks will return to the average level of previous years and total 654 TMT including 284 TMT of sunflowerseeds, 179 TMT of soybeans, 173 TMT of rapeseeds and 18 TMT of peanuts. The high level of aggregate stocks in MY 2018/19 (909 TMT) was due to large ending stocks of sunflowerseeds conditioned by moderate growth rates in processing and weak exports.

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