It is planned to build a plant for the production of vegetable oils in the Oryol region for 3 billion rubles.

The company "MEZ Yuneko", which has been granted permission for development in the special economic zone "Orel", plans to build a plant for the production of vegetable oils on this territory, the regional government press service reports. The total investment in the project will amount to about 3 billion rubles. The plant's main products will be rapeseed oil, as well as the production of rapeseed meal and lecithin. The plant will have a production capacity of 300 thousand tons of rapeseed per year. The launch of the enterprise will create 110 new jobs. The main market for product sales will be the compound feed industry. In addition, the company plans to export its products, primarily to the countries of Southeast Asia.

According to Rusprofile, the company "MEZ Yuneko" was registered in November 2023 in the Oryol region. The company's authorized capital is 10 thousand rubles. The main type of activity is the production of unrefined vegetable oils and their components. The general director of the company is Petr Budagov, who owns 1% of the shares directly and 99% through the company "APK Youth", which is engaged in the cultivation of grain crops. Earlier, "APK Youth" was under the control of Sergey Budagov, who was suspected of fraud related to the acquisition of shares of the Oryol Field. However, the case was closed in 2020. Currently, all assets of "APK Youth" belong to Sergey Budagov's son Petr. The company also owns 30 thousand hectares of land.

Analyst OleoScope Kirill Lozovoy notes that the Oryol region is the largest producer of rapeseed in the Central Federal District and ranks second in Russia, second only to the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Last year, the region produced almost 300 thousand tons of rapeseed, which is 1.5 times higher than the indicators of 2022. Taking these factors into account, the choice of the site for the construction of the plant is fully justified.

It is also necessary to take into account the logistics factor: vegetable oils can be transported over significant distances, on average up to 500 kilometers. The Kursk and Lipetsk regions, located nearby, also produce large volumes of rapeseed, which must be taken into account when forming a raw material procurement strategy, notes the analyst Agroinvestor. He believes that the focus should be on rapeseed oil, as its export is prohibited in Russia. Last year, the volume of rapeseed processing exceeded 3.4 million tons, and over the past five years, this figure has increased by 2.5 times.

As the analyst notes, the company "MEZ Yuneko", which has received the status of a resident of the special economic zone "Orel", is likely to be able to obtain various regional advantages due to the placement of the enterprise in the SEZ territory. As for the finished products, rapeseed meal is obtained as a by-product in oil production, and it is widely used in animal feed and compound feed production. Meeting the demand for rapeseed meal in the domestic market is undisputed. However, it is necessary to take into account existing risks related to logistics and high railway congestion. In this regard, the analyst believes that the main product of the plant should be rapeseed oil, which will be exported to the countries of Southeast Asia.

As a result of the harvest of oilseeds in 2023, it is expected that the production volume will reach 30 million tons, setting a new record. The sunflower crop is estimated at over 17.4 million tons, soybeans - 6.85 million tons, rapeseed - 4.22 million tons. This was reported by the general director of the Agricultural Market Conjunction Institute Dmitry Ryliko at the "Where is the Margin" conference. According to preliminary data from Rosstat, the sunflower harvest in 2023 amounted to 16.7 million tons, soybeans - 6.7 million tons, rapeseed - 4.19 million tons (excluding new regions).