The EU-27's imports of rapeseed oil (RSO) in the 2021-22 marketing year (July-June) reached their highest in at least 10 years, with the bloc's 2021-22 soybean oil (SBO) and sunflower oil (SFO) imports also surpassing the previous year's levels, according to preliminary data from the European Commission.
The bloc's cumulative imports of RSO in the 2021-22 marketing year reached 603,339t, more than double the 263,232t received in 2020-21 (see chart). This is the highest cumulative import volume since the 2011-12 marketing year, when bloc's total RSO imports stood at 601,080t.
The surge was largely led by Poland and the Netherlands — the EU's largest RSO importers in 2021-22. Dutch receipts reached 155,403t, compared with just 33,895t imported in the 2020-21 marketing year. Poland imported 127,087t in 2021-22, up from 63,190t in the previous season.
Russia became the main supplier of RSO to the EU-27 in the 2021-22 marketing season, supplying 160,181t, or 26.5pc of overall EU RSO imports, followed by Belarus and Ukraine, with 144,176t and 127,297t — or 23.9pc and 21.1pc — respectively.
EU-27 countries also ramped up SFO and SBO imports in the 2021-22 marketing season, with overall volumes reaching 1.95mn t and 504,125t, respectively, up from 1.72mn t and 474,403t in 2020-21. The largest volumes of both vegetable oils came from Ukraine — at 1.6mn t and 190,923t, respectively — while the Netherlands and Poland imported the largest SFO and SBO volumes, at 456,385t and 190,055t respectively.
In contrast, the EU-27's palm oil imports fell to multi-year lows of 4.8mn t in 2021-22, down by 637.481t on the year and the lowest since the 2011-12 marketing year, when they totalled 4.6mn t. The drop was driven by lower Dutch imports of product at 1.45mn t, their lowest since at least 2011-12. Indonesia and Malaysia supplied the largest volumes of palm oil to the EU in 2021-22, at 1.97mn t and 1.11mn t, respectively.
Rapeseed imports fall sharply
Higher RSO arrivals in 2021-22 offset a sharp drop in EU rapeseed imports, owing to reduced supply availability on the global market, mainly from Canada. The EU-27's 2021-22 rapeseed imports totalled 5.52mn t, down from around 6.51mn t a year earlier and 6.01mnt in 2019-20, but still higher than the five-year average (see chart).
Australia was a major supplier of rapeseed to the EU in 2021-22, with a record 2.92mn t, more than double the 1.44mn t supplied to the bloc in the previous marketing year and up from the last record of 2.35mn t in 2016-17. Belgium received the largest amount of product at 1.47mn t, which was almost in line with the 1.4mn t imported in 2020-21. In contrast, the Netherlands — the EU's second-largest importer of rapeseed — received 1.41mn t of the product in 2021-22, down from 1.65mn t a year earlier.
The bloc's imports of other oilseeds — including soybeans and sunflower seeds (SFS) — were mixed in the 2021-22 season, with SFS imports rising to 1.07mn t, up from 876,698t in 2020-21, while soybean imports fell to 14.54mn t from 15.42mn t in the previous season.
