According to Cofeed, the latest statistics of soybean oil stocks and amounts in outstanding contracts in Chinese major areas in week 48(till December 1st, hereinafter referred to this week) are shown as follows:
unit：10,000 tonnes
|
Area/Item
|
Soybean oil stocks
|
Soybean oil in outstanding contracts
|
|
|
Week 48
|
Week 47
|
Fluctuation
|
Week 48
|
Week 47
|
Fluctuation
|
|
Northeast China
|
7
|
8.25
|
-1.25
|
11.25
|
12.2
|
-0.95
|
|
North China
|
28.64
|
28.57
|
0.07
|
16.85
|
19.26
|
-2.41
|
|
Shandong
|
14.52
|
15.18
|
-0.66
|
7.21
|
8.17
|
-0.96
|
|
East China
|
51.1
|
50.55
|
0.55
|
37.46
|
40
|
-2.54
|
|
Guangdong
|
17.7
|
18.57
|
-0.87
|
18.78
|
19.85
|
-1.07
|
|
Guangxi
|
18
|
16.5
|
1.5
|
16.15
|
16
|
0.15
|
|
Fujian
|
9.85
|
9.7
|
0.15
|
5.35
|
4.92
|
0.43
|
|
Henan
|
4.3
|
4.09
|
0.21
|
1.45
|
1.58
|
-0.13
|
|
Sichuan
|
6.2
|
5.48
|
0.72
|
2.8
|
3.2
|
-0.4
|
|
Others
|
10.98
|
10.58
|
0.4
|
1.72
|
1.78
|
-0.06
|
|
Total
|
168.29
|
167.47
|
0.82
|
119.02
|
126.93
|
-7.91
|
Comments: operating rate this week(Nov. 25th--Dec. 1st) is a tad lower than last week, but still remains at a high level. With good soybean crush margins and higher enthusiasm for soybean processing, most oil mills keep a full operation and some oil mills even shift to soybean crush from rapeseed crush, resulting in a higher-than-expected operating rate this week. Generally, national soybean crush this week is trammed slightly to 1,960,150 tonnes(1,558,319 tonnes of soybean meal, 352,827 tonnes of soybean oil) by 0.42% from 1,968,550 tonnes attained in the week before, with a drop of 8,400 tonnes, and capacity utilization is also down 0.25 percentage points to 57.39% from 57.64% last week.
Traders in some regions like those in northeast have made preparations for packing oil stockpiling in consideration of a lower operating rate recently. In addition, turnover of soybean oil upon lower prices at Shandong ports goes better than other ports, thus stock growth is slower than expected. Till December 1st, soybean oil in Chinese business inventories has slightly climbed to 1.6829 Mln tonnes by 0.49% from 1.6747 Mln tonnes the same period last week with a rise of 8,200 tonnes, and by 6.51% from 1.58 Mln tonnes the same period last month with an increase of 102,900 tonnes, and by 69.34% from 0.9938 Mln tonnes the same period last year with an increase of 689,100 tonnes. Though stock growth is not impressive overall, it still remains at a high level.
According to Cofeed latest statistics, estimated 141 vessels loaded with 9.0775 Mln tonnes of soybeans may arrive at China’s ports in December, which increases by 3.98% compared with 8.7293 Mln tonnes attained in November, lower than previous estimate of 9.3 Mln tonnes, and the figure is up 0.90% year on year from 8.996081 Mln tonnes. Generally, estimated 8.2 Mln tonnes and 6.5 Mln tonnes of soybeans may arrive at ports in January and February(2018) respectively. Additionally, in terms of high operating rate and good crush margins in oil mills amid large soybean arrivals later, stockpile pressure is likely to persist till December the time small stockpiling is launched ahead of New Year’s Day and Spring Festival , otherwise stocks are hard to wane.
Figure: Comparison of domestic soybean oil stocks in recent years
