Higher highs and lower lows: What’s next for the EU's sunflower oil?

It was only a year ago when sunflower oil (SFO) truly lived up to its golden colour, costing more than double the price of Brent crude. SFO prices have almost steadily come down since March last year, with losses quickening this month, driven by looser market fundamentals, turbulence in competing vegetable oil businesses — especially rapeseed oil (RSO) — and wider macroeconomic concerns. It is still unclear whether the downward trend has ended or if prices can see further drops despite a slight rebound in SFO prices in the past few days. SFO prices trading on a fob six ports basis fell below $1,000/t last week, largely following a massive drop in RSO prices that hit their lowest since November 2020 during bulk oilseed imports to the EU-27, with additional pressure coming from a bleak macroeconomic outlook. The EU-27 is set up to import record volumes of rapeseed and sunflower seeds (SFS) in the 2022-23 marketing year, having already received a respective 6.19mn t and 1.98mn t of ...