Export duty on Russian sunflower oil drops nearly 50% to 8,621.3 rubles/tonne as of Sept 1 - Agriculture Ministry

MOSCOW. Sept 1 (Interfax) - The export duty on Russian sunflower oil has dropped nearly 50% to 8,621.3 rubles per tonne as of September 1 from 15,987.1 rubles per tonne in August, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.

The latest export duty virtually reverts to the July figure of 8,408.7 rubles per tonne.

The export duty on sunflower meal has decreased to 1,578.5 rubles per tonne for September from 2,265.4 rubles per tonne in August. The export duty was 1,819.1 per tonne in July.

The duties are based on indicative prices of $1,583 per tonne for sunflower oil and $269 per tonne for sunflower meal.

The Russian government adopted a resolution on converting the export duties on grain, sunflower oil, and sunflower meal into rubles and on extending the export duties on sunflower oil and meal for one year until August 31, 2023. The resolution was signed on June 30, 2022, and has been published on the official portal for legal information.

According to the resolution, the baseline price for calculating the export duty on sunflower oil is 82,500 rubles per tonne rather than the previous $1,000 per tonne, and the baseline price for sunflower meal is 13,875 rubles per tonne instead of $185 per tonne. "The average exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to the Russian currency that the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) sets five working days prior to the date of calculating the rate for the export customs duty on grain" will be the calculation formula for converting the duty into rubles.

The duty on sunflower oil is 70% of the difference between the baseline price of 82,500 rubles per tonne and the indicative price, which is the average market price for the month. The export duty for sunflower meal is calculated using a formula that is the difference between the indicative price and a baseline price of 13,875 rubles per tonne, multiplied by an adjustment factor of 0.7.