Cofeed News: imports of soybean oil in March totaled 8,882.437 tonnes, a tad higher than imports in February, but still not many overall. Generally speaking, the reason for such low imports was that few importers preferred imported soybean oil for direct use in consideration of profits and upside-down prices at home and abroad. Furthermore, Chinese buyers had engaged in imported soybeans buying for lucrative import margins, which sent operating rate to a exceedingly high level and boosted soybean oil output. Yet, till the end of March, soybean oil stocks for commercial use came into at 1,377,790 tonnes when crushers were inclined to their own production in soybean oil consumption. Worthy of noticing, most of soybean oils imported in March were non-GM oils.

    According to customs data, March imports of soybean oil amounted to 8,882.437 tonnes, generally up 3,088.312 tonnes by 53.3% on the month from 5,794.125 tonnes. Whereas, imports decreased by 67.11% from 27,003 tonnes year on year with a reduction of 18,120.563 tonnes.

    Details for China’s imports of soybean oil in March: 7,271.815 tonnes from Russian Federation, 696.664 tonnes from Ukraine, 74.278 tonnes from Vietnam, 39.433 tonnes from the United States, 691.74 tonnes from Argentina, 0.427 tonnes from Greece, 0.74 tonnes from Switzerland, and 107.34 tonnes from France.

    Average prices for soybean oil in March settle at USD $849.22 per tonne, basically down USD $15.8 per tonne from February’s USD $865.02 in 2018, while CIF price came into at 6,576 yuan/tonne, down 143 yuan/tonne compared with February’s 6,719 yuan/tonne.

Monthly imports of soybean oil in 2018 (tonnes）
Month	2017-2018		2016-2017
	Qty. (t)	Y-o-Y (%)	Qty. (t)	Y-o-Y (%)
Jan.	19,364.234	-45.89%	35,786	152.25%
Feb.	5,794.125	-80.22%	29,297	-62.80%
Mar.	8882.437	-67.11%	27003	71.41%
M-o-M	5794.125	53.30%