This week (as of Jan. 3), edible palm oil stock totals 794,100 tonnes at domestic ports, up 7.5% from 738,900 tonnes last week; up 109,100 tonnes or 15.9% from 685,000 tonnes the same period last month; up 281,000 tonnes or 54.8% from 513,100 tonnes the same period last year. Meanwhile, industrial palm oil stock at domestic ports totals 130,900 tonnes, down 5,900 tonnes or 4.3% from 136,800 tonnes last week.

The price spread between soybean oil and palm oil changes a little. As of this Friday, the price spread is still low at 525 yuan/tonne, slightly up by 2 yuan/tonne from 523 yuan/tonne last week. With the temperature decreasing, the usage volume for palm oil as blending oil will be restricted, so buyers remain cautious. Though the overall trading goes better this week, it still has no heavy volume. The trading volume totals 21,950 tonnes this week, up by 3,500 tonnes or 18.97% from 18,450 tonnes last week. In addition, palm oil stock continues to pick up due to intensive arrival of cargoes at ports, especially in North China. However, a sharp rise in price recently escalates the inversion of import profit of palm oil. As of Jan. 3, the duty-paid value for imported Indonesian palm oil was 6,856 yuan/tonne in January and totaled 6,404 yuan/tonne along with palm oil P2001 contract the same day, and the profit was -452 yuan/tonne. Thus, there are fewer and fewer purchases of cargoes of palm oil in the late period on account of import profit losses. Also, the further growth in palm oil stock is predicted to slow.

Region /Port	Edible Palm Oil Stocks（0'000 mT）					Industrial Palm Oil Stocks
	W1	W52	Change	M-O-M	Y-O-Y	W1	W52	Change
Tianjin Port	9.32	9.7	-0.38	21.03%	-18.40%	2.1	2.2	-0.1
Hebei	0.4	0.68	-0.28	-2.40%	33.30%	0.2	0.12	0.08
Shandong Port	4.58	3.08	1.5	-16.70%	13.60%	2	1.75	0.25
East China	29.95	29.45	0.5	143.89%	142.39%	5.85	6.6	-0.75
Guangdong	28.2	23.75	4.45	66.50%	59.20%	2.6	2.55	0.05
Guangxi	3.76	4.33	-0.57	32.40%	60.40%	0.34	0.46	-0.12
Fujian	3.2	2.9	0.3	156.00%	-8.60%	0	0	0
Total：	79.41	73.89	5.52	15.90%	54.80%	13.09	13.68	-0.59

Fig.: China's palm oil stocks in recent years

According to the latest statistics by Cofeed, the estimate of import volume for January this week is 370,000 tonnes, up by 50,000 tonnes from last week (RBD palm olein 250,000 tonnes and industrial palm oil 120,000 tonnes). And the estimate for February is 350,000 tonnes, down by 30,000 tonnes from last week (RBD palm olein 200,000 and industrial palm oil 120,000 tonnes).