Global vegetable-oil production continues to grow

World production of vegetable oils is growing, as is demand.

Especially palm and soybean oil are likely to be significantly more abundant in 2024-’25, more than offsetting the decline in sunflower oil.

The USDA expects global production of vegetable oils in the current crop year to hit a record level at 224.2 million metric tons.

This would translate to a 2.7-million-ton rise year-on-year.

Consumption is estimated at 221.7 million tons, up 5.3 million tons on the previous year.

Against this background, ending stocks are poised be lower than the previous year at 29.6 million tons and also fall short of the longstanding average.

According to investigations conducted by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (mbH), palm-oil production is set to reach yet another record volume in 2024-’25.

Although the USDA lowered its earlier forecast of 80 million tons, the currently expected 79.8 million tons are still up 0.8 million tons on the 2023-’24 output.

Given the ample supply of feedstock, supply of soybean oil is likely to grow just less than 3.2 million tons, hitting a new record at 65.5 million tons.

Production of rapeseed oil is also set to reach a record level at 34.2 million tons.

The USDA expects sunflower-oil production, however, to plummet in 2024-’25, especially due to a more than 1-million-ton decline in Ukraine production. The world forecast was lowered almost 1 million tons month-on-month to 20.6 million tons, sliding just under 2 million tons below the previous year’s volume. This would be the lowest output since 2021-’22.

The Union zur Förderung von Oel- und Proteinpflanzen e. V. (UFOP) has stated that global supply of vegetable oils for human consumption is fundamentally secure.

The association has emphasized the important advantage that rapeseed, sunflower and soybean oil are nutritionally interchangeable in food preparation.

The same applies to processed products such as fat spreads.

The association has reminded of the shortages of sunflower oil at the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which shortages were filled with rapeseed oil.

“The UFOP is concerned about the large number of military conflicts that currently exist in many regions, stressing that the resulting supply bottlenecks and famines are exclusively due to political reasons,” the association stated.