The main reasons for oil processing reduction are Russian occupation or regular shelling
According to Volodymyr Bondaruk, oilseeds trader of Prometheus Group, Ukrainian sunflower processing is one of the industries that suffered the most after the war began. Today oil producers in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions as well as multinational companies throughout the country are practically not working. The rest of the companies with Ukrainian roots outside the war zone are all working.
We practically lost processing in the oil and fat industry in the Zaporizhzhia region, which included the Melitopol and Pology plants, as well as the Satellite plant. Also, three enterprises in Zaporizhzhia, including such a giant as the Zaporizhzhia Oil and Fat Combinat, are operating in an extremely limited way.
The Kakhovsky plant in the Kherson region, with the capital of a foreign investor, was lost. In the Kharkiv region, enterprises also cannot work at full capacity, although this region was rich in processing enterprises. In particular, two large agricultural holdings had three plants there. Several medium-sized plants were also destroyed in the region by Russian invaders.
At the same time, Donetsk and Luhansk regions don’t have a big influence because not much sunflower is grown there.
The main losses are Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions, which were significant for the industry. They processed up to a third of Ukrainian sunflower.
“In the end, multinational companies left the Ukrainian market or significantly reduced the amount of processing. One very large international company was afraid of war risks, and during the first 6 months of the war, it did not cooperate with Ukrainian companies and did not conduct activities either in trading or in processing in general. It was a fairly strong player in the market with large plants in the Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions. They produced oil themselves and accumulated it in significant quantities in the ports. I can’t say that they are now “out of the market”, but we don’t feel any competition from them,” commented Volodymyr Bondaruk.
Import/Export Statistics
Please click to reach our marketplace