Argentine sunseeds to be shipped to Romania for the first time

Romania – one of Europe’s key sunseed producers – is set to import its first-ever cargo of Argentine sunflower seeds after dry late summer weather decimated sunseed crops in the Black Sea region, Argentine line-up data showed on Tuesday.

The Romania-bound vessel named Ephiphania is scheduled to depart with 35,000 mt of Argentine sunseed on March 14 from the Argentine port of Necochea, the data showed.

The charterer was said to be Amaggi.

A further 60,000 mt of Argentine sunseed exports have been earmarked to leave for Romania, taking this marketing year’s total volume up to 95,000 mt so far, data in the Argentine export registry showed.

Dry weather across the Black Sea region and a smaller planted area caused the Romanian sunseed crop to fall 28% on the year to 2.24 million mt, USDA data showed, slashing the country's own exports by 37% on the year.

That has caused April loading sunseed cargoes in Constanta, Varna or Burgas to shoot up to $728/mt FOB, compared to $400/mt this time last year.

Argentine sunseed, meanwhile, was heard trading around $660/mt FOB for spot cargoes.

The drought in the Black Sea also hampered the region's soybean crops, with Brazil set to export 51,600 mt of soybeans to Ukraine on March 20, via the vessel named Papa John, in what was the first such cargo to move since July 2020.