According to Cofeed, in the week as of July 17, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

With a slight pickup in operation rates this week (July 11-17), soybean crush at domestic mills totals 2,063,500 tonnes (meal 1,630,165 tonnes and oil 392,065 tonnes), up 69,300 tonnes or 3.1% from 1,999,600 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 59.43%, up 1.84% from 57.59% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to further increase to 2.09 mln tonnes next week and then fall fractionally to 2.06 mln tonnes in that following week, still at a very high level.

Soybean oil stocks continue a small rise this week. In the week ending July 17, China’s soybean oil commercial inventory has totaled 1,196,800 tonnes, up 8,000 tonnes by 0.67% from 1,188,800 tonnes last week, up 196,800 tonnes by 19.68% from 1,000,000 tonnes last month, yet down 249,100 tonnes by 17.23% from 1,445,900 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year average at the same period is 1,328,200 tonnes. 

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