According to Cofeed, in the week as of Apr 23, details of soybean oil inventories and outstanding contracts in main domestic regions are as follows:

Operation rates continue picking up as expected this week (Apr 17-23). Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,779,000 tonnes (meal 1,405,410 tonnes and oil 338,010 tonnes), up 162,000 tonnes or 10.01% from 1,617,000 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 50.17%, up 4.57% from 45.60% in the previous week. Soybean crush is expected to increase to 1.86 mln tonnes next week, but will fall to 1.80 mln tonnes in week 18 due to May Day holidays and as many soybean crushers in Rizhao, Shandong Province, will be in downtime when steam supply will be affected by the maintenance of power plants.

Alongside a continued rise in operation rates, soybean oil stocks also start to increase this week. In the week ending Apr 23, China’s soybean oil commercial stocks total 591,700 tonnes, up 3.2% from 573,200 tonnes last week, down 16.7% from 710,000 tonnes month on month, and down 30.1% from 847,000 tonnes year on year. And the five-year (2016-2020) average at the same period is 1,076,200 tonnes.

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