According to Cofeed, this week (as of Jan. 25th), 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, which can be contributed to quick shipments with stockpiles before the festival underway. As of January 25th, the inventory has totaled 1,346,200 tonnes, down 63,100 tonnes by 4.48% from 1,409,300 tonnes last week, down 295,300 tonnes by 17.99% from 1,641,500 tonnes month-on-month, and down 166,800 tonnes by 11.02% from 1,513,000 tonnes year-on-year. And the mean of the same period in recent five years is 1,112,500 tonnes. With the completion of packing-oil stockpiles and slowdown in delivery among oil mills, the decline of soybean oil inventories will also narrow down.
As oil mills have been working at full capacity to satisfy the stockpiling before the Spring Festival, operation rate for soybean crush has picked up further to a higher-than-expected level this week (Jan. 19th-25th). Specifically, national soybean crush totals 1,861,400 tonnes (meal 1,470,506 tonnes and oil 353,666 tonnes), an increment of 172,000 tonnes by 10.18% from 1,689,400 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rate (capacity utilization) has gone up by 4.85 percentage points to 52.51% from 47.66% last week. Oil mills will gradually break up for the Spring Festival entering next week, soybean crush will thus hover around 1.35 Mln tonnes and 50,000 tonnes in the next two weeks amid declining operation rate. Overall, soybean oil stockpiles will see few changes in the next two weeks.
Fig.: China’s Soybean Oil Stocks in Recent Years
