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Key takeaways:
Within a three-week period, at least nine recorded strikes hit veg oil-processing plants as well as Black Sea ports and related port infrastructure, causing damage to production assets, storage tanks and port facilities, alongside temporary shutdowns of processing capacity and losses of stored vegetable oil.
According to industry sources, around a quarter of the sector’s processing capacity is currently idle due to logistical disruptions, electricity supply issues and security concerns.
Direct attacks on operating oil-extraction and processing plants have been among the most consequential incidents, triggering a strong market reaction.
Among the publicly confirmed strikes were those on the Bunge-owned Oleina plant in Dnipro, the Allseeds terminal at Pivdennyi port and Kernel’s Illichivsk oil and fats plant in Chornomorsk, while unconfirmed reports suggest that the large oil-crushing facility in Kryvyi Rih has also been affected.
According to industry sources, the attacks are not random but form a deliberate campaign targeting a key, export-oriented sector of Ukraine’s economy.
Stepan Kapshuk, Director General of UkrOliyaProm, said to local industry media Latifundist that vegetable oils and oilseed meals together account for over 15% of Ukraine’s foreign-currency earnings and around 20% of the country’s merchandise exports, underscoring the significance of the recent attacks on Ukrainian processing plants.
At the same time, Russian forces have repeatedly struck port infrastructure across the Greater Odesa ports, leaving Black Sea port operations constrained by recurring disruptions and security-related limitations.
The combined effect has tightened export availability, raising concerns on international markets over near-term supply reliability and supporting higher prices in an already risk-sensitive trading environment.
According to Fastmarkets assessments, sunflower oil prices FOB six ports, which stands for six European ports, including Rotterdam and Amsterdam (Netherlands), Antwerp and Ghent (Belgium) and Dunkirk and Dieppe (France), climbed to around $1,409 per tonne for February shipment on January 8 – about $80 per tonne higher than the $1,330 per tonne range seen on December 18, just before attacks on Ukraine’s vegetable oil processing sector intensified.
This brings prices to their highest level since August 2022, when Ukraine effectively lost a significant share of its vegetable oil processing capacity after several plants fell into occupied territories.
Price dynamics have been further reinforced by a limited number of available offers, with market participants reporting that only two to three active sellers remain in several locations.
“Yes, that’s [the attacks] are the main reason, but supply is also quite limited. And at the six ports right now there is effectively no real competition – only two or three sellers, and they are holding prices and pushing the market higher,” a broker source said.
“The six ports price reflects lower crush in Ukraine in January/February and concerns over the attacks, with many players being affected,” a trader source said.
Such a big surge in the exact price is also explained by the fact that those countries have limited choice of supply, with Ukrainian sunoil share being at around 40% on average through the January-October period of 2025 while, in October, import was 97% covered from Ukraine, according to Eurostat data.
Still, these countries also serve as key suppliers of sunflower oil to one another within the EU, while Ukraine stands out as the main supplier outside the EU. At the same time, European countries cannot import sunflower oil from Russia, Ukraine’s main global competitor, owing to economic sanctions now in place.
But even before the recent attacks specifically targeting vegetable oil facilities, sunflower oil prices in Ukraine were already supported by several factors, most notably extremely challenging logistics caused by repeated Russian strikes on infrastructure and the energy sector, as well as supportive conditions in the Black Sea region owing to adverse weather and higher export taxes in Russia along with low farmer anticipation in seed selling.
“You have the combination of horrible weather and extremely constrained inland/port logistics in Ukraine that delayed any pipeline rebuild at destination. Russians are also constrained due to increasing export tax, poor crush margins and low farmer liquidity so they are unable to push prices lower to capture more volume,” the trader source also said.
All these factors have also pushed up the prices into other big export destinations, such as India and Turkey.
The Fastmarkets’ assessment for Sunoil CIF Turkey has moved up by $14 per tonne to current $1318 per tonne during the December 18 to January 8 period, while Sunoil CIF India increased by $50 per tonne to $1325 per tonne. Both levels currently at their highest since February 2023.
Unlike European countries, Turkey and India are able to purchase vegetable oil of Russian origin, and recent reports indicate that most of their volumes have been sourced from Russia, as prices remain more attractive than Ukrainian supply.
According to customs data, Turkey’s imports of sunflower oil during January-November 2025 were at 1.1 million tonnes, where 64% of that amount was sourced from Russia and only 24% from Ukraine. That compares with the same period a year ago, when 1.28 million tonnes were imported by Turkey, out of which the Russian share was at 56% and the Ukrainian at 39%.
In terms of India, another big supplier is available – Argentina, though Russia was still seen as the number one supplier.
Whereas, during the period from January-October 2025, India’s total imports were at 2.29 million tonnes according to national customs data, the Russian share was at 46.5%, the Argentinian at 23% and the Ukrainian at 22%, in 2024, the total import during the same period was at 3.1 million tonnes, with the Russian share at 50%, the Ukrainian at 19.6% and the Argentinian at 10%.
Volatility, unpredictable weather patterns, geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions can significantly impact the availability and pricing of veg oils. Stay ahead with market-reflective updates from Fastmarkets.