According to Cofeed, in the week as of July 24, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

Some crushers are facing ballooning soybean meal inventories or temporary soybean supply shortages as cargoes are unable to row ashore after heavy rains pulled up waters, so operation rates have fallen from high levels this week (July 18-24). Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,955,300 tonnes (meal 1,544,687 tonnes and oil 371,507 tonnes), down 108,200 tonnes or 5.24% from 2,063,500 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 56.32%, down 3.11% from 59.43% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to be around 1.96 mln tonnes and 2.05 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

Soybean oil stocks continue rising this week, as soybean crush still stays high and one oil mill has also imported a lot of crude soybean oil. In the week ending July 24, China’s soybean oil commercial inventory has totaled 1,236,250 tonnes, up 39,450 tonnes by 3.3% from 1,196,800 tonnes last week, up 164,250 tonnes by 15.32% from 1,072,000 tonnes last month, yet down 219,250 tonnes by 15.06% from 1,455,500 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year average at the same period is 1,348,500 tonnes. 

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