Canada: Only 3% Of Soybean Oil Exports Go to the UAE
Talk to our team about AgFlow's offering →
Reading time: 2 minutes
Soybeans are now Canada’s third largest field crop in terms of farm cash receipts. As production and processing grow, Canada is becoming a more critical Soybean supplier, and Soybeans are becoming a more important force in the Canadian economy.
Canadian farmers have grown Soybeans for more than 70 years, and recent advances in plant breeding are spurring a new surge in production. Soybeans now rank fourth among Canada’s principal crops in terms of acreage. This growth has been driven by the development of new early-maturing Soybean varieties that are expanding the boundaries of where the crop can thrive. Until the 1970s, almost all of Canada’s Soybeans were grown in southern Ontario. Today Soybeans have become an essential crop in Quebec and Manitoba, as well as parts of the Maritimes, southeast Saskatchewan, and southern Alberta.
Soybean Oil production is constrained by limited processing capacity in Canada, primarily in Eastern Canada. In 2022/23, production is estimated at 369,000 tons. Soybean Oil Export levels are forecast to be sustained at 170,000 tons in MY 2023/24 because of a forecasted only marginal change in production and based on the assumption that the extraction rate will align with the five-year average.
According to AgFlow data, Canada exported 0.2 million tons of Soybeans to China in Jan-Feb 2023, followed by Iran (63,000 tons), Algeria (42,421 tons), and Norway (12,000 tons). Soybean Oil exports are forecast to increase in MY 2022/23 on a slight increase in production. Year-to-date (August 2022 to January 2023), 94 percent of soy Oil exports went to the United States and three percent to the United Arab Emirates. In the past five marketing years, 94 to 99 percent of exports were sold to the United States. Soybean imports remain low because Canada is a large canola Seed producer and processor and a net exporter of vegetable Oil.
Though not a direct Soybean Oil import, the share of imported U.S. renewable fuel produced from U.S. Soybean Oil (UCO) is falling. Data from British Columbia’s mandatory reporting program, published in the most recent Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements Summary, indicates that in 2021 fuel suppliers supplied 288.9 million liters of renewable fuel produced from UCO versus 172.7 million liters of fuel made from vegetable Oil.
Sunflower Seed Oil in Canada
Sunflower Seed processing remains very limited in Canada. FAS/Ottawa anticipates that Sunflower Seeds grown for Oil in Manitoba will continue to be exported to North Dakota for crushing. Looking ahead to MY 2022/23, the share of Sunflower Seed Oil imports from the United States is projected to increase following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
MY 2022/2023 Year-to-date (August 2022 to January 2023), the share of imports from Ukraine is 27 percent. Since MY 2020/21, Canada has imported a higher percentage of Sunflower Oil imports from Ukraine than it has historically. However, that share has been slowly declining from year to year as the war in Ukraine continues and the Black Sea ports remain affected. In MY 2020/2021, the share of Sunflower Oil imported from the United States fell from a five-year average of 77 percent to 47 percent.
The shift in market share was due to record Sunflower Seed production in Ukraine in MY 2019/20, which resulted in low Sunflower Oil prices in spring 2020 and a subsequent increase in Canadian buying, according to FAS/Kyiv in spring 2021. Canada’s market share of Sunflower Seed Oil imported from Ukraine increased to 38 percent in MY 2020/21, up from a five-year average (MY 2015/16 to MY 2019/20) of six percent. In MY 2021/22, 34 percent of Canada’s Sunflower Seed Oil imports came from Ukraine.
Other sources: USDA
Try AgFlow Free
Access Free On Updates for Corn, Wheat, Soybean,
Barley, and Sunflower Oil.
No Credit Card Required & Unlimited Access In Time
