According to Cofeed, in the week as of Sept 25, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

This week (Sept 19-25), with massive soybean arrivals at ports and in order to satisfy the demand ahead of the National Day holidays, some oil mills are operation at full capacity and several mills also resume soybean crush after years of suspension, so operation rates for soybean crush continues climbing, sending the crush to hit a fresh single-week high. Specifically, soybean crush at domestic mills totals 2,273,250 tonnes (meal 1,795,868 tonnes and oil 431,918 tonnes), up 89,600 tonnes or 4.10% from 2,183,650 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 65.45%, up 2.58% from 62.87% in the previous week. As the next two weeks will fall on the eight-day National Day holidays, the crush is predicted to be 1.90 mln tonnes and 1.53 mln tonnes, respectively.

Given that soybean crush has hit a fresh single-week high, the growth in soybean oil stockpiles is unexpectedly small. The main reasons are as follows. First, he demand for soybean oil is increasing as its rival rapeseed oil is in low stocks and high prices; second, the consumption of soybean oil in feed also sees a sharp rise; fourth, mid-to-downstream buyers are stocking up briskly ahead of the Golden Week holidays in particular with small-to-medium-sized packaged oil, and many domestic companies have also purchased packaged soybean oil for employees as a corporate welfare for the holidays, which also count for a big proportion of market share.

In the week ending Sept 25, China’s soybean oil commercial inventories total 1,336,490 tonnes, up 5,640 tonnes by 0.42% from 1,330,850 tonnes last week, up 66,490 tonnes by 5.24% from 1,270,000 tonnes a month earlier, and down 12,660 tonnes by 0.94% from 1,349,150 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year (2015-2019) average at the same period is 1,333,600 tonnes.

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