According to Cofeed, this week (as of Jan. 18th), details of soybean oil stock and amounts in outstanding contracts are as follows:
Unit: 0’000 tonne
Soybean oil inventories have continued to post sharp drops this week since oil mills have quickened their shipments with stockpiles before the festival underway, in spite of pickups in operation rate last week. In particular, it has declined drastically in East China, where a foreign-owned factory is still buying up soybean oil. As of January 18th, the inventory has totaled 1,409,300 tonnes, down 72,800 tonnes by 4.91% from 1,482,100 tonnes last week, down 279,000 tonnes by 16.53% from 1,688,300 tonnes month-on-month, and down 140,700 tonnes by 9.08% from 1,550,000 tonnes year-on-year. And the mean of the same period in recent five years is 1,1384,000 tonnes.
Soybean crush has reversed its declines to rally this week amid eased soybean meal stock pressure and stockpiling for the Spring Festival. Specifically, national soybean crush totals 1,689,400 tonnes (meal 1,334,626 tonnes and oil 320,986 tonnes), an increment of 212,800 tonnes by 14.41% from 1,476,600 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rate (capacity utilization) has gone up by 6 percentage points to 47.66% from 41.66% last week. The crush volume will move higher to 1.80 Mln tonnes next week as oil mills will make the final push for ongoing stockpiling. The downward pace will slow down with the completion of packing-oil stockpiling later.
Fig.: China’s Soybean Oil Stocks in Recent Years
