According to Cofeed, the latest statistics of soybean oil stocks and amounts in outstanding contracts in Chinese major areas in week 12 (till March 23rd, hereinafter referred to this week) are shown as follows:
Unit：10,000 tonnes
|
Area/Enterprise
|
Soybean oil stocks
|
Soybean oil in outstanding contracts
|
|
|
Week 12
|
Week 11
|
Variation
|
Week 12
|
Week 11
|
Variation
|
|
Northeast China
|
3.3
|
3.63
|
-0.33
|
6.7
|
7.9
|
-1.2
|
|
North China
|
24.42
|
25.22
|
-0.8
|
18.2
|
17.11
|
1.09
|
|
Shandong
|
9.38
|
10.43
|
-1.05
|
6.46
|
5.24
|
1.22
|
|
East China
|
45.57
|
46.65
|
-1.08
|
27.8
|
26.95
|
0.85
|
|
Guangdong
|
16.783
|
16.105
|
0.678
|
18.38
|
16.566
|
1.814
|
|
Guangxi
|
14.363
|
14.265
|
0.098
|
14.05
|
17.35
|
-3.3
|
|
Fujian
|
6.8
|
6.2
|
0.6
|
4.1
|
4.27
|
-0.17
|
|
Henan
|
3.34
|
2.65
|
0.69
|
0.78
|
0.87
|
-0.09
|
|
Sichuan
|
4.35
|
5.05
|
-0.7
|
3.58
|
3.6
|
-0.02
|
|
Others
|
10.85
|
10.25
|
0.6
|
1.16
|
1.28
|
-0.12
|
|
Total
|
139.156
|
140.45
|
-1.294
|
101.21
|
101.136
|
0.074
|
Comments: soybean oil reverses the gains and goes lower in stocks this week, and according to Cofeed, soybean oil in China's business inventories till March 23rd has plunged to 1,391,560 tonnes from 1,404,500 tonnes on the week by 0.92% and 12,940 tonnes below by comparison. Additionally, the figure is also down 1.72% from 1,415,850 tonnes with a decrease of 24,290 tonnes on a year-on-year basis, but up 22.07% from 1,140,000 tonnes for the same week last month. On the very note, average stocks of soybean oil in recent five years are around 972,570 tonnes.
Since operating rate is somewhat lowered in China’s oil mills this week, national soybean crush now amounts to 1,651,500 tonnes (1,312,942 tonnes of soybean meal, 297,270 tonnes of soybean oil), decreasing by 9.21% or 167,500 tonnes below from 1,819,000 tonnes last week. Meantime, soybean processing capacity utilization is down to 48.36%, 4.91 percentage points lower than 53.27% last week. Generally speaking, total soybean crush this week is downsized to be around 1.64 Mln tonnes, affected by a general machine halt due to machine overhauls, bloated soybean meal inventories and unavailable soybean supplies in some oil mills. Yet, soybean crush next week will again enhanced to 1.8 Mln tonnes or so.
According to Cofeed, about 95 vessels loaded with 6.05 Mln tonnes of soybeans are only expected to arrive at China’s ports in March of year 2018, a rise of 88% as opposed to 5.56 Mln tonnes in February, but generally down 3.5% from 6.27 Mln tonnes the same month in year 2017. And delayed by relatively slow transportation in Brazil, soybean arrivals estimates in the second quarter will be substantially great, in detail, 8.3 Mln tonnes in April, 9.3 Mln tonnes in May and 10 Mln tonnes in June. If it goes as expected, an overwhelming supply over demand will be a normality the time operating rate remains exceedingly high.
Figure: Comparison of domestic soybean oil stocks in recent years
