The oilseed crushing industry in the frontline regions of Ukraine has been significantly affected due to Russian military aggression: part of the oil extraction plants was destroyed by Russian troops, part is located in the temporarily occupied territories, and the remaining enterprises are closed or operate in a limited mode.

Estimated losses of the industry were announced by Volodymyr Bondaruk, a trader in oilseeds of the Prometheus group of companies, in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

According to him, the invaders inflicted the main losses on the oil-processing industry of Ukraine in Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions, where about one third of all Ukrainian sunflower was processed before the war.

Bondaruk said that the Melitopol Oil Extraction Plant with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes of sunflower seeds per day (420 tonnes of finished oil per day) and the Polohy Oil Extraction Plant (2,000 tonnes of sunflower seeds per day) were under Russian occupation. At the same time, in Zaporizhia itself, three oil extraction enterprises operate to a very limited extent, including the Zaporizhia Oil and Fat Plant with a capacity of 2,800 tonnes per day.

"In Kherson region, the Kakhovka Oil Extraction Plant with the capital of a foreign investor has been lost. In Kharkiv region, enterprises also work as much as they can, although Kharkiv region was rich in oil extraction plants: in particular, two large agricultural holdings had three plants there, and several medium-sized oil extraction plants suffered from the war in the region," the industry expert said.

According to him, the losses of the oil extraction industry in Donetsk and Luhansk regions are less severe, since there is little sunflower grown in these regions. However, the Russians seized the large plant Satellit (Mariupol, Donetsk region) with a daily output of 500 tonnes of vegetable oil per day.

Bondaruk said that it is now impossible to calculate the exact number of oil refineries destroyed and seized by the aggressor in Ukraine, especially taking into account small oil mills with a capacity of 100-200 tonnes of oil per day.

"Finally, multinational companies left the Ukrainian market, or significantly reduced the volume of processing. One very large international company was afraid of military risks and for the first six months of the war did not cooperate with Ukrainian companies and did not really carry out trading or processing activities in general. I can say that they are now "out of the market", but we do not feel any competition from them," the trader from Prometheus said.

Bondaruk said that even during the war in Ukraine, oil extraction is continued by the remaining national companies, which oil extraction plants are located outside Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions, as well as the occupied territories.

"Summing up, we can exclude the regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and multinational companies from producers. All other companies with Ukrainian roots, which are the majority on our market (Kernel alone produces up to 40% of Ukrainian oil), they all work," Bondaruk said in the interview.