According to Cofeed, in the week as of Oct 30, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

Crushers lower down operation rates as expected and with the decline larger than expected this week (Oct 24-30), as some are in maintenance time and some suspend for soybean shortages or for swelling meal inventories. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 2,093,480 tonnes (meal 1,653,849 tonnes and oil 397,761 tonnes), down 103,770 tonnes or 4.72% from 2,197,250 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 59.79%, down 3.47% from 63.26% in the previous week. Soybean crush is expected to rise to 2.13 mln tonnes and move to 2.15 mln tonnes in the next two weeks, respectively.

Soybean oil stocks thus continue reducing this week, as buyers from various fields still have strong demand and the consumption of soybean oil to replace its rivals and in feed has been increasing. In the week ending Oct 30, China’s soybean oil commercial inventories total 1,251,200 tonnes, down 21,400 tonnes by 1.68% from 1,272,600 tonnes last week, down 855,000 tonnes by 6.4% from 1,336,700 tonnes a month earlier, and down 5,350 tonnes by 0.43% from 1,256,550 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year (2015-2019) average at the same period is 1,366,400 tonnes.

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