KIEV (September 16 2004): Ukraine cut sunflower oil output to 59,200tonnes in August from 108,000 in July, the State Statistics Committee saidon Thursday.

It said Ukraine produced 901,000 tonnes of crude sunoil in the first eightmonths of the year compared with 811,000 in the same period in 2003.Ukraine harvested 4.2 million tonnes of sunflower seed in 2003 andanalysts said the country might have produced about 1.5 million tonnes ofsunoil from last year's harvest.

Ukraine is among the world's leading sunseed producers, with its outputaccounting for around 10 percent of global output.