According to Cofeed, in the week as of Nov 27, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

An increasing number of mills have been forced to halt production by growing pressure from swelling soybean meal, so operation rates for soybean crush sharply decline this week (Nov 21st-27th). Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,843,280 tonnes (meal 1,456,191 tonnes and oil 350,223 tonnes), down 192,400 tonnes or 9.45% from 2,035,680 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 52.64%, down 5.5% from 58.14% in the previous week. Soybean crush will continue falling to 1.80 mln tonnes next week as it still takes time to digest ballooning meal inventories, but it will rise again to 1.95 mln tonnes that following week.

Soybean oil stocks continue reducing this week due to smaller output under lower soybean crush. In the week ending Nov 27, China’s soybean oil commercial inventories total 1,151,000 tonnes, down 24,800 tonnes by 2.11% from 1,175,800 tonnes last week, down 117,800 tonnes by 9.28% from 1,268,800 tonnes a month earlier, and up 90,100 tonnes by 8.49% from 1,060,900 tonnes of the corresponding period last year. And the five-year (2015-2019) average at the same period is 1,311,800 tonnes.

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