BELOKURIKHA, March 1. /TASS/. Areas under oil crops may grow by 200,000-350,000 hectares in the agricultural season of 2024-2025 after the decline in the current season, General Director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies Dmitry Rylko said.

"We see the season of 2024 is not about the recovery of sowing areas under main oil crops in the country (sunflower, soybeans, rapeseed, flax and safflower) and we believe that there will be growth highly likely in the season of 2024-2025 for almost all oil crops, with the exception of one crop probably - sunflower," the expert said.

According to the Institute’s estimate, sowing areas will decline for sunflower but will grow for soybeans, rapeseed and flax. Oil crop areas will increase overall but the 2022 record of 18,600 thousand hectares will stay.

"There is a probability that we will set a new record of oil crops harvesting in Russia. The harvest will be probably above 30 mln metric tons in the season of 2024-2025. [A dip, if it takes place], will most probably be related to <...> sunflower, provided that the weather is good. Concerning sunflower, further to sowing problems, there are certain risks with seeds quality," Rylko said.

Russia continues implementing oil crop processing projects, which will provide for incremental growth by 4.5 - 6.5 mln metric tons more in three - four coming years. Utilization of new capacities will require from 1.5 mln to 2.5 mln hectares of extra areas for oil crops in Russia, he added.