Русский
Russia exported soybean oil to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries worth nearly US$290 million in 2025, up 11% from 2024, according to the Agroexport federal center. The MENA region accounted for 43% of the export revenue from supplies of Russian soybean oil abroad. The top five buyers included Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel.
Ilya Ilyushin, Agroexports CEO, has been attending the Gulfood2026 exhibition, which opened in Dubai yesterday (January 26), and stated that “The MENA countries are large and growing markets with a high need for imports of vegetable oils, including soybean oil. Given the increase in soybean production and processing in Russia in recent years, we are actively increasing exports of soybean oil and consider the MENA macro-region as one of the promising directions.”
Soybean oil is one of the most widely consumed cooking oils and the second most consumed vegetable oil after palm, with canola (rapeseed) third. Russia’s most popular vegetable oil is sunflower oil.
China is the world’s largest producer of soybean oil with 29% of the global market, followed by the United States (19%), Brazil (17%), Argentina (12%), the European Union (4%), India (3%), and Mexico tied with Russia at 2% of the global production.
Russia has only recently begun actively developing soybean and soybean oil production and is still far behind the major players; however, Russian producers have the European Union soybean producers in their competition sights, as Russian prices are slightly more competitive (US$1,050 against US$1,073 per tonne) and transportation costs 40% less expensive due to the rather more expensive energy overheads in the EU.
