According to Cofeed, on the week as of August 23rd, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts are as follows:

　　

 

Soybean oil inventory has further declined this week due to quick delivery this week, as the market is still stocking up in the run up for the Mid-autumn Festival and National Day and some mills are still performing the contracts signed before. On the week as of August 23rd, the inventory has totaled 1,319,500 tonnes, down 12,100 tonnes by 0.91% from 1,331,600 tonnes last week, down 140,500 tonnes by 9.62% from 1,460,000 tonnes last month, and down 299,900 tonnes by 18.47% from 1,618,500 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year average at the same period is 1,321,800 tonnes.

 

However, the operation rate has risen as expected since mills are active in crushing due to somewhat eased soybean meal inventory and handsome crush margins. Thereby, soybean crush totals 1,704,800 tonnes (meal 1,346,792 tonnes and oil 323,912 tonnes), an increase of 126,400 tonnes by 8% from 1,578,400 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, the operation rate (capacity utilization) is 47.72%%, up 3.54 percentage points from 44.18% last week. Soybean crush is predicted to continue its growth to around 1.82 mln tonnes next week and to around 1.85 mln tonnes the following week. And more domestic importers will turn to profitable South American soybean oil, so the inventory is predicted to increase again in later period. 

 

Fig.: China’s Soybean Oil Stocks in Recent Years