China increases purchases of vegetable oil from Russia 16% to 1 mln tonnes in first half of 2025-2026 agricultural year - Agroexport

MOSCOW. March 11 (Interfax) - China purchased almost 1 million tonnes of vegetable oil from Russia from September 2025 to February 2026 (the first half of the 2025-2026 agricultural year for oils and fats products), up 16% compared to a year earlier, the Agroexport federal center told Interfax.

As a result, it became the main buyer of these products from Russia for this period, displacing India from the first position, which held this spot at the halfway point of the previous agricultural year. The level of vegetable oil exports from Russia to China turned out to be the second highest in the entire period of observations, second only to the maximum figure of the first half of the 2023-2024 agricultural season - 1.2 million tonnes.

This became possible due to the global market situation, namely the increase in demand for Russian rapeseed oil during the reporting period to 0.8 million tonnes (+19%), Agroexport said. In addition, it was partially influenced by the worsening situation with imported canola supplies to China due to the trade conflict with Canada and the sluggish pace of Australian raw material arrivals at Chinese oil mills as an alternative procurement channel.

"At the same time, shipments of sunflower, soybean and linseed oils from Russia to China in September-February of the 2025-2026 agricultural year overall remained relatively equivalent to the level of the same period last year," the center said.

Analysts also said that an additional driver for China's rise to the first position among importers of Russian vegetable oil was the situation in the Black Sea region. "Due to the reduction in the availability level of sunflower seeds, as well as against the backdrop of increased competition for raw materials among oil mills and more restrained rates of seed processing, export prices (FOB) in the Azov-Black Sea basin jumped to multi-year highs, thereby cooling the interest in purchases from India and Turkey. These countries took second and third places, respectively, in the ranking of the main importers of Russian vegetable oils in the first half of the season," the center said.