Comments: stockpiles of soybean in oil mills pile up this week, helped by large soybean arrivals and normal shipments, as a result, some oil mills have to stop operation due to overflowing meal in stock. Till April 13th (week 15 of year 2018), stocks of imported soybeans in China’s major coastal areas have further increased to 4,057,000 tonnes from 3,578,600 tonnes, a rise of 13.36% or 478,400 tonnes on the week, but as opposed to the same week last year, its stocks are down 4.12% from 4,231,500 tonnes. By and large, if soybean crush increase to 1.78 Mln tonnes or so in week 16, stockpiles of soybean would edge lower.
In contrast, stockpiles of soybean meal this week edge lower for crushers urge buyers to take delivery in case of bloated soybean meal and machine halt. Nevertheless, with somewhat eased US-China relationship, buyers become more cautious about meal purchases given that price upside of futures is apparently lower than market expectation, and meantime soybean meal in outstanding contracts also decreases. Till April 13th, total stocks in costal major areas come in at 785,100 tonnes, down 40,900 tonnes from 826,000 tonnes on the week by 4.95%, but when compared with 591,000 tonnes a year ago, stocks are still up 32.57%. In comparison, soybean meal amounts in outstanding contracts are down to 5,951,900 tonnes, generally falling 2.68% or 163,900 tonnes as opposed to 6,115,800 tonnes last week, but up 30.20% from 4,571,100 tonnes on a year-on-year basis. On the whole, soybean meal stocks next week are expected to ratchet up if the operation rate is further improved.
Figure 1: Trend of Chinese coastal soybean carry-over stocks in recent years
Figure 2: Trend of Chinese coastal soybean meal carry-over stocks in recent years
Figure 3: Trend of Chinese coastal soybean meal in outstanding contracts in recent years
