"After two or three years, depending on the yield of sunflower, sunflower oil exports may reach 50% of its production," said Dmitry Rylko reporters on the sidelines of the oil conference on Tuesday in Moscow.

Currently, the share is 47%. In the last marketing year (for sunflower oil in September-August) Russia exported 2.15 million tons of sunflower oil. "This is a record figure", - he said.

Speaking at the conference, the head of IKAR, said that the consumption of sunflower oil in Russia is stagnating. "This year we expect consumption to decrease slightly. The season when the export share will reach 50%, and in the future we will be more oil to export, you can consume inside the country," he said.

According to him, "there is hope for the countries of South-East Asia, but there are other very important markets." First of all, we are talking about the Middle East and Africa. "You need to seriously think about where our profits," he added.

Rylko also said that at present export of vegetable, including sunflower oil from Russia, "is in the shadow of neighbor Ukraine, which exports much more". "But while our markets are not very strong overlap. The intersection is 20-25%. Ukraine focused on EU market, for obvious reasons. Ukraine knocked us out, he said. - Our core competencies are associated with Egypt, Turkey and countries in the Middle East."

As stated by the head of IKAR, the export is also "sharpened" and the production of rapeseed oil. This year, the share of exports in production was 77%. The export of this oil is including in the EU. Great prospects in this trade he ties with China, so the interest in canola production "will grow rapidly", especially in the regions of Western Siberia.

According to Rosstat, Russia in 2017 gathered 11 million tons of sunflower against 9.6 million tons a year earlier, and 3.6 million tons of soybeans, compared with 3.1 million tons, rapeseed - 1.5 million tons versus 999 thousand tons, respectively.

Photo: superagronom.com