An ample supply of vegetable oil in the global market is putting pressure on sunflower prices and area crush plants are feeling the effects.
“Sunflower prices at the crush plants are feeling the spillover effect from weakness in global sunflower seed and oil values,” said John Sandbakken, executive director of the National Sunflower Association (NSA), commenting in the weekly NSA newsletter on Oct. 23. “Vegetable oil prices have trended downward as the result of ample supplies, especially sunflower oil on the global market.”
Looking at area crush plant prices as of Oct. 23, at ADM in Enderlin, N.D., the price for NuSun sunflower delivered in November was $15.50 per hundredweight, and $16.25 for delivery in December. Cargill in West Fargo, N.D., listed No Quote (NQ) for November and a buyer’s call price of $16 for December. Cargill at Pingree, N.D., posted NQ for both November and December.
For high-oleic sunflower, West Fargo listed a price of $16.75 for delivery in November and $17.25 for delivery in December. Enderlin posted $16.50 for delivery in November and $17.25 for delivery in December.
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“Strong selling pressure from Black Sea region sunflower oil has been the major bearish factor in the vegetable oil market,” he said. “Key buyers, such as China and India, are sitting on large oil inventories, and this is adding further pressure to oil values.”
In other news, USDA released its latest grain stocks report the third week in October and estimated old crop sunflower stocks in all positions on Sept. 1 at 367 million pounds. That’s up 25 percent from a year ago. All stocks stored on-farm totaled 142.6 million pounds and off-farm stocks totaled 224.6 million pounds.
USDA pegged stocks of oil type sunflower seed at 340 million pounds, with 137 million pounds of this total in on-farm stocks. Off-farm stocks were estimated at 203.2 million pounds.
Non-oil sunflower stocks totaled 27 million pounds, with 5.6 million pounds stored on the farm and 21.4 million pounds stored off the farm, according to the USDA report. Stocks of oil type sunflower seed were 53 percent higher than last year, while non-oil stocks were down 62 percent from a year ago.
“Both figures were within average industry estimates,” he said, adding that USDA would be providing its first estimate of 2023 U.S. harvested sunflower acres and total seed production in an upcoming report.
Read More: Global vegetable oil supplies pressure sunflower prices