According to Cofeed, the latest statistics of soybean oil stocks and amounts in outstanding contracts in Chinese major areas in week 17 (till April 27th, hereinafter referred to this week) are shown as follows:
Unit: 0'000 tonnes
|
Area/Enterprise
|
Soybean oil stocks
|
Soybean oil in outstanding contracts
|
|
|
Week 17
|
Week 16
|
Variation
|
Week 17
|
Week 16
|
Variation
|
|
Northeast China
|
2.47
|
2.58
|
-0.11
|
6.25
|
7.08
|
-0.83
|
|
North China
|
24.1
|
23.77
|
0.33
|
20.18
|
23.05
|
-2.87
|
|
Shandong
|
9.62
|
9.32
|
0.3
|
9.42
|
9.62
|
-0.2
|
|
East China
|
44.65
|
44.4
|
0.25
|
31.95
|
34.2
|
-2.25
|
|
Guangdong
|
12.49
|
13.372
|
-0.882
|
22.8
|
19.99
|
2.81
|
|
Guangxi
|
12.765
|
13.615
|
-0.85
|
11.45
|
12.94
|
-1.49
|
|
Fujian
|
6.5
|
7.15
|
-0.65
|
4.2
|
4.2
|
0
|
|
Henan
|
3.425
|
3.4
|
0.025
|
1.13
|
0.86
|
0.27
|
|
Sichuan
|
2.73
|
3.4
|
-0.67
|
3.28
|
3.7
|
-0.42
|
|
Others
|
11
|
11.28
|
-0.28
|
1.45
|
1.12
|
0.33
|
|
Total
|
129.75
|
132.287
|
-2.537
|
112.11
|
116.76
|
-4.65
|
Comments: soybean oil stocks fall substantially this week when compared with last week, and according to Cofeed, soybean oil in China's business inventories till April 27th is pegged at 1,297,500 tonnes, down 25,370 tonnes by 1.92% from 1,322,870 tonnes on the week, and generally down 91,500 tonnes by 6.59% from 1,389,000 tonnes on the month, nevertheless, the figure is still up 148,800 tonnes by 12.95% when compared with 1,148,700 tonnes year on year. On the very note, average stocks of soybean oil in recent five years are around 944,520 tonnes.
Increasing idle plants in domestic mills due to overflowing soybean meal weaken soybean processing this week, particularly when stockpile pressure of soybean meal is considerable factored in great damage in pigs raising, light feed demand in aquatic raising and slow consumption in end users. Soybean crush nationwide now amounts to 1,718,750 tonnes (1,366,406 tonnes of soybean meal, 309,375 tonnes of soybean oil), generally decreasing by 4.78% or 86,450 tonnes vis-a-vis 1,805,200 tonnes last week. Meantime, soybean processing capacity utilization falls to 50.33%, 2.53 percentage points lower than 52.86% last week. Generally speaking, total soybean crush in week 18 is expected to stay at 1.72 Mln tonnes with less and less soybean oil production, and meantime its stockpiles is to fall further given good demand for lower basis in recent days .
Yet, soybean crush for the week after next (week 19) is prospected to reach over 1.8 Mln tonnes provided if stockpile pressure of soybean meal is eased amid good crush margins. Accordingly, latest estimates for soybean arrivals in May are around 9.04 Mln tonnes of 141 vessels, lower than anticipated 9.2 Mln tonnes; around 9.5 Mln tonnes in June and 10 Mln tonnes in July. On the whole, soybean oil production is to churn out based on high operation rate in the days ahead.
Figure: Comparison of domestic soybean oil stocks in recent years
