According to Cofeed, the latest statistics of soybean oil stocks and amounts in outstanding contracts in Chinese major areas in week 18 (till May 4th, hereinafter referred to this week) are shown as follows:
Unit: 0’000 tonnes
|
Area/Enterprise
|
Soybean Oil Stocks
|
Soybean Oil in Outstanding Contracts
|
|
|
Week 18
|
Week 17
|
Variation
|
Week 18
|
Week 17
|
Variation
|
|
Northeast China
|
2.57
|
2.47
|
0.1
|
7.18
|
6.25
|
0.93
|
|
North China
|
24.47
|
24.1
|
0.37
|
20.78
|
20.18
|
0.6
|
|
Shandong
|
11.2
|
9.62
|
1.58
|
8.74
|
9.42
|
-0.68
|
|
East China
|
45.83
|
44.65
|
1.18
|
32.3
|
31.95
|
0.35
|
|
Guangdong
|
11.55
|
12.49
|
-0.94
|
22.02
|
22.8
|
-0.78
|
|
Guangxi
|
12.365
|
12.765
|
-0.4
|
11.64
|
11.45
|
0.19
|
|
Fujian
|
5.8
|
6.5
|
-0.7
|
4.28
|
4.2
|
0.08
|
|
Henan
|
3.545
|
3.425
|
0.12
|
1.14
|
1.13
|
0.01
|
|
Sichuan
|
3.25
|
2.73
|
0.52
|
3.2
|
3.28
|
-0.08
|
|
Others
|
10.1
|
11
|
-0.9
|
1.47
|
1.45
|
0.02
|
|
Total
|
130.68
|
129.75
|
0.93
|
112.75
|
112.11
|
0.64
|
Comments: soybean oil stocks recover this week coming after declines a week earlier, and according to Cofeed, soybean oil in China's business inventories till May 4th is pegged at 1,306,800 tonnes, generally up 930,000 tonnes by 0.72% from 1,297,500 tonnes on the week, but down 65,200 tonnes by 4.75% from 1,372,000 tonnes on the month. As opposed to the same period a year earlier, it is still up 153,800 tonnes by 13.34% from 1,153,000 tonnes, and on the very note, average stocks of soybean oil in recent five years are around 944,866 tonnes.
Since the operation rate in oil mills falls further this week attributed to delayed soybean meal delivery and increasing idle plants after bloated meals in mills, national soybean crush this week is around 1,481,250 tonnes (1,177,593 tonnes of soybean meal, 266,625 tonnes of soybean oil), generally decreasing by 13.81% or 237,500 tonnes vis-a-vis 1,718,750 tonnes last week. Meantime, soybean processing capacity utilization falls to 43.27%, 7.03 percentage points lower than 50.33% last week. Though turnover upon forward low basis is seen promising, the pace of soybean oil delivered are significantly slowed and volumes lessened in mills. Total traded volumes in main mills nationwide are around 84,800 tonnes, of which 12,1000 tonnes are based on spots, and 72,700 tonnes basis contracts. Worthy of noticing, traders prefer orders to delivery of goods and markedly curtail their demand for spots, which no doubt slow down soybean oil consumption this week.
Generally speaking, total soybean crush in week 19 is basically around 1.5 Mln tonnes, and 1.68 Mln tonnes in week 20 based on good crush margins and anticipated eased pressure on stockpiles.
Figure: Comparison of domestic soybean oil stocks in recent years
