According to the National Association of Oilseed Processors of Kazakhstan (NOPA), Kazakhstan exported 63,200 tonnes of sunflower husk pellets between January and September of this year. This is 3.56 times more than during the same period last year. For comparison, exports for the whole of 2025 amounted to 33,400 tonnes, worth $1.35 million.
Poland is the largest buyer of Kazakh products. In 2025, it accounted for approximately 98% of exports. Polish combined heat and power plants use pelletized sunflower husks as biofuel for energy production. At the same time, the demand of just one large power plant can reach 30,000 tonnes of pellets per month.
“Sunflower husks are generated during seed processing at oil extraction plants. Depending on the quality of the raw materials, their yield amounts to 14–18% of the mass of processed sunflower seeds. Today, most medium-sized and large enterprises in Kazakhstan separate the husks, using some of them in their own boiler facilities to generate process steam, while processing the surplus into fuel pellets,” said Yadykar Ibragimov, Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Oilseed Processors of Kazakhstan.
Currently, up to ten Kazakh plants produce pellets from sunflower husks. Their combined output reaches 10,000 tonnes per month. Almost all of these products are exported.
The NOPA notes that processing sunflower husks allows enterprises to address two objectives simultaneously: meeting their own energy needs and generating additional export revenue. At the same time, pelletization significantly increases the density of the product, making it easier to store and transport over long distances.
The use of sunflower husks for on-site electricity generation is becoming a separate area of development. One of Kazakhstan's large enterprises has already installed a modern boiler that makes it possible to generate electricity for lighting production workshops and the plant's premises.
According to the Association's estimates, in the medium term, Kazakhstan is capable of increasing exports of pelletized sunflower husks to 250,000 tonnes annually. This is almost 7.5 times the export volume recorded in 2025.
The NOPA links further growth to the expansion of sunflower cultivation areas, increased domestic processing, and stable demand for biofuel from European consumers.
Thus, the development of the oilseed processing industry is opening up an additional export direction for Kazakhstan: alongside vegetable oil and meal, foreign buyers are also supplied with products obtained from by-products of production
