Kernel ups sunflower processing 10%, oil exports 44% in Jan-March

MOSCOW. April 23 (Interfax) - Kernel, one of the largest Ukrainian agro-industrial groups, processed 816,000 tonnes of sunflower seeds in January-March, the third quarter of the 2024 financial year, which is 10% more than in the same period of the previous year.

Ukrainian media reported, quoting a company filing with the Warsaw Stock Exchange, that six of the holding's crushing plants were operating at almost full capacity, whole two plants were idle.

In addition, at the end of February, Kernel began commissioning the Starokonstantinovsky oilseed processing plant in the Khmelnitsky region. The plant is expected to operate at full capacity for 1 million tonnes of sunflower seeds annually by May 2024.

Sunflower oil sales rose 44% in January-March 2024 to 394,000 tonnes, while sales over the nine months of the financial year came to 1.103 million tonnes.

Sales of bottled sunflower oil in Q3 of financial 2024 amounted to 5% of total sales, or 19,000 tonnes.

Kernel said its volumes at grain storage facilities in January-March were a seasonally low 254,000 tonnes while for 9M the figure was 2.7 million tonnes, as a year previously.

Grain exports in January-March increased 2.3-fold to 1.877 million tonnes.

Transshipment by the holding's export terminal in January-March also increased 2.3-fold, to 2.464 million tonnes of grain, sunflower oil and meal. The growth was driven by steady export activity through the Black Sea, higher sunflower oil production, cargo handling by port terminals acquired earlier in the season, along with the provision of transshipment services to third parties.

Kernel is one of the largest producers and sellers of bottled oil in Ukraine, and is a major producer and exporter of sunflower oil, as well as cultivates agricultural products and sells them.

Kernel reported a net profit of $299 million for financial 2023, compared to a net loss of $41 million a year earlier. The group's revenue fell 35% to $3.455 billion, while EBITDA jumped 150% to $544 million.

In the first half of financial 2024, Kernel's net profit tumbled 72% year-on-year to $102 million and EBITDA fell by half to $223 million, as revenue slumped 16% to $1.59 billion.