According to Cofeed, in the week as of February 21st, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts are as follows:

 

Following another rise in operation rates this week (Feb. 15-21), soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,808,800 tonnes (meal 1,428,952 tonnes and oil 343,672 tonnes), up 233,200 tonnes or 14.8% from 1,575,600 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) reach 51.98%, up 6.7 percentage points from 45.28% in the previous week. As operation rates continue to increase in the next two weeks, soybean crush is predicted to be around 1.85 mln tonnes and 1.87 mln tonnes, respectively.

 

Oil mills continue to pick up operation rates, but under the influence of the epidemic, most of them are just crushing and fail to sell out soybean oil; hence, soybean oil stocks continue the sharp increase this week. In the week ending February 21st, China’s commercial inventory has totaled 1,197,800 tonnes, up 170,200 tonnes by 16.56% from 1,027,600 tonnes last week, up 347,800 tonnes by 40.92% from 850,000 tonnes last month, yet down 106,500 tonnes by 8.17% from 1,304,300 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year average at the same period is 1,140,100 tonnes. 

 

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