According to Oil World analysts, in June-July of 2019 Iran reduced the imports of oilseeds by 13%, in particular soybeans, sunflower seed and rapeseed — to 1.33 mln tonnes, as opposed to 1.53 mln tonnes in the same period of 2018, and significantly increased the purchases of vegetable oils and meals — 984 thsd tonnes (up 71%) and 1.59 mln tonnes (up 2.3 times), respectively.
In particular, the imports of sunflower oil increased in 2.5 times compared with the figures of June-July of 2018 — to 512 thsd tonnes, against 213 thsd tonnes, mainly due to increasing of the supplies from Russia. Also, Iran imported 203 thsd tonnes of soybean oil, against 116 thsd tonnes last year, and 268 thsd tonnes of palm oil, against 247 thsd tonnes in 2018.
At the same time, in June-July of 2019 Iran significantly increased imports of soybean meal, which decreased the Iran's demand for sunflower and rapeseed meals. Thus, the supplies of soybean meal on the Iranian market increased in 2.5 times y-o-y — from 678 thsd tonnes to 1.58 mln tonnes, as well as the supplies of sunflower and rapeseed meals decreased by 88% (from 26 thsd tonnes to 3 thsd tonnes) and 78% (from 9 thsd tonnes to 2 thsd tonnes), respectively.
Oil World analysts expected that in 2018/19 MY (October-September), the general imports of soybean meal to Iran will exceed the previous record of 2013/14 MY, and reach 2.4 mln tonnes. Argentina (with the share of supplies on the Iranian market at 50%), Brazil and India will become the main suppliers of the products.
You can receive more detailed information about the imports of oilseeds and its by-products by Iran and other MENA countries within frames of the international conference "Middle East Grains&Oils Congress: Beirut edition", to be held in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 18-19, 2019.
