According to Cofeed, in the week as of Apr 16, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

Operation rates pick up as expected this week (Apr 10-16) owing to more imported soybean stocks put into mills and easing soybean meal inventory pressure. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,617,000 tonnes (meal 1,277,430 tonnes and oil 307,230 tonnes), up 261,800 tonnes or 19.31% from 1,355,200 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 45.60%, up 7.38% from 38.22% in the previous week. Soybean crush is expected to increase to 1.70 mln tonnes and 1.77 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

Soybean oil stocks continue falling this week as an increase in oil shipments offsets a rise in soybean crush. In the week ending Apr 16, China’s soybean oil commercial stocks total 573,200 tonnes, down by 3.3%% from 592,500 tonnes last week, down 21.6% from 731,000 tonnes month on month, and down 36.6% from 904,500 tonnes year on year. And the five-year (2016-2020) average at the same period is 1,165,500 tonnes.

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