According to Cofeed, on the week as of September 27th, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts are as follows:

 

This week (Sept 21st-27th), downstream buyers have nearly completed their replenishment now that it is just one week left ahead of the National Day, so mills have slightly reduced their operation rates. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,815,150 tonnes (meal 1,433,968 tonnes and oil 344,878 tonnes), down 29,300 tonnes, or 1.62%, from 1,829,000 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, the operation rate (capacity utilization) is 50.07%, down 0.48 percentage points from 50.55% last week. Soybean crush will drastically drop next week as mills in Shandong and North China cut down their operation rates due to the holidays and the parade, so the crush is expected to be around 1.11 mln tonnes next week, but it will increase to 1.43 mln tonnes that following week. 

 

Mills have just reduced their crush for a little bit, buyers have already finished replenishment of packing oils with only some demand for bulk oils, and mills are not in rapid delivery, so soybean oil inventory continues to increase this week. On the week as of September 27th, the commercial inventory has totaled 1,349,150 tonnes, up 1,100 tonnes from 1,348,050 tonnes last week, up 24,150 tonnes by 1.82% from 1,325,000 tonnes last month, yet down 343,150 tonnes by 20.28% from 1,692,300 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year average at the same period is 1,327,200 tonnes.

 

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