Ukraine's leading sunflower oil company, Zernotorgovaya Allseeds Ukraina, said on Tuesday it had boosted sunoil output by 17 percent to 149,826 tonnes so far in the 2006/07 season.
Zernotorgovaya, which operates the large Kyrovohradoliya plant in central Ukraine and Ecotrans plant in the southern part of the country, produced 128,146 tonnes of sunoil in the same period in 2005/06.
The company, which exports about 90 percent of its output, said it had processed 338,833 tonnes of sunseed so far in 2006/07 compared with 293,401 in the same period in 2005/06. Zernotorgovaya said it planned to increase sunoil exports by 30 percent to about 300,000 tonnes this season.
Earlier this season, the company said it would build an $80 million facility in the Black Sea port of Mykolayiv to allow it to triple crushing capacity to 1.5 million tonnes when completed in 2009-2011. It also planned this year to complete construction of a $6.5 million export terminal with capacity to load 1 million tonnes a year of liquid cargoes, including sunoil.
Ukraine harvested at least 5.0 million tonnes of sunseed by clean weight in 2006, compared with about 4.7 million tonnes in 2005. Analysts have said the country is likely to boost sunoil output to about 2.1 million tonnes in 2006/07 from 2.0 million tonnes in 2005/06. UkrAgroConsult agricultural consultancy said Ukraine's sunflower oil exports could rise to 1.6 million tonnes in 2006/07 from 1.52 million in 2005/06.