Monthly Stock Comparison 2022

The total end stock of the 3 major vegetable oils in China reversed the downtrend recorded in the past 5 months in April 2022, and reached 1.37 million MT.  The stock level was marginally higher by 40,600 MT or 3.1% month-on-month, but still lower than stock level recorded in February.   The increase in April’s stock was mainly lifted by the sharp increase in SBO’s stock, while PO and RSO’s drop in stock almost nullified the increase recorded in SBO’s stock level during the month, explaining why the increase was marginal.

This month, the PO stock level has reached record low of 290,900 MT since Nov 2010, which is less than 50% of the monthly buffer stock require to sustain palm oil demand based on the average monthly consumption recorded in 2021.  The drop which was 15.8% m-o-m came as surprise when the country is expected to consume more SBO and lead to higher stock, as palm olein has been selling at the premium against SBO since January 2022, and surged to as high as RMB2,320/MT in April. Nevertheless, the surge in PL premium against SBO has also deterred the interest of traders and importers to continue stay on side lines waiting for lower price, subsequently led to the record low import volume. Although the import statistics for April is still unavailable, it is believe that the import volume is at below 200,000 MT as per recorded in monthly import volume of Jan to Mar this year, judging from

In contrary, the SBO stock has surged 110,500 MT or 16.2% in April due to the continued improvement of crushing margin in recent months, which has increased as high as average RMB712/MT in March. Although the crushing margin has retreated to slightly below RMB300/MT in April, it’s still remain lucrative for the crushers to run the plant to offset the slowdown in crushing activities due to poor or negative margins in certain months in a year. Nevertheless, the high crushing activities have led to the drastic built up of stock as the current high vegetable oil prices has inevitably caused the slowdown in industry activities especially those involve non-essential products. Subsequently, this also slowed down the demand for SBO. Besides that, the release of government soybean and SBO reserves since March have also led to the higher level of commercial stock in the market.

Compared to both SBO and PO, the stock of RSO only moved (dropped) marginally by 5,400 MT during the month of April, where both crushing of RS and import of RSO are not expected to have big movement due to the high prices and also low availability due to the poor European RS crop.

April 2022 stocks are 16% lower than April 2021 and 27% lower than the previous month, March 2022. Importers were caught on the wrong foot when prices started climbing. No wonder stocks were brought down to such low levels, in fact lowest in the last 60 months. Whilst POP stocks fell by 28% compared to March 2022, Soft Oils stocks fell 27%. RBD Olein stocks continue to be at healthy levels compared to other oils, thereby indicating sustained imports. The fact that RBD stocks are higher than CPO stocks, has caused concern amongst the local processors as their capacity utilisation is affected adversely. Both Palm and Soft Oil stocks have decreased. SFO stocks decreased by 33% compared to March 2022 whilst SBO stocks decreased by 21%. There is an obvious shift from SFO to SBO due to Ukraine situation. SFO stocks fell by 58% compared to April 2021, SBO stocks increased by 23%, and PPO stocks increased by a marginal 3% during the same period. The Ukraine situation will continue to influence the composition of the import basket, especially SBO/SFO. This is an opportunity for PO suppliers to step forward and regain some of the lost ground.

At the end of April 2022, the edible oil stocks at Port Qasim Authority (PQA) and Karachi Port Trust (KPT) have recorded a figure of 276,430 MT which is 30.02% higher than the closing stocks of the previous month.

Out of the total 276,430MT of stocks available at Port Qasim Authority and Karachi Port, the stocks of RBD palm olein is showing the highest share of 51.37% followed by palm oil 37.55% and soybean oil 3.33%. Palm oil and its various fractions have a share of 96.67% in the total ending stocks.

The increase in the local stocks is attributed to the slow distribution of edible oil on the anticipation of increase in the price in domestic market in the month of May due to the announced export ban of palm oil from Indonesia. Pakistan is heavily reliant on imports of palm oil from Indonesia and any prolonged ban can result in severe shortage of cooking oils and fats. Pakistan industry was expecting to receive nearly 130,000 MT of palm oil from Indonesia in the month of May, the status of which is currently uncertain.

Source: MPOC Market Intelligence

Stock figures will be updated no later than the 10th of every month

Import quantity of RBD Olein in April 2022 was 107,735 tonnes which was (-) 44.71% lower compared to the quantity imported in April 2021. Import quantity of CDSBO in April 2022 was 66,951 tonnes, which witnessed decline by (-) 17.34% compared to April 21. There was no CPO imported in April 2022 as well as in April 2021. There was no RPO imported in April 2022 as well as in same period of 2021. There was 700 MT CPKO was imported at April 2022 while 800 MT CPKO were imported in April 2021 which is a decline by (-) 12.5% compared to the April 2021. There was 3,310 MT RPS imported in April 2022 and 3,982 MT in April 2021 which is (-) 16.88 % decline compared to April 2021.  Import quantity of PFAD/Acid oil in April 2022 was 384 tonnes, and Import quantity of PFAD/Acid Oil during same period of 2021 was 250 MT which is 34.89% higher than same period of 2021.  There was 335 MT of sunflower Oil imported in April 2022 while 125 MT was imported in April 2021 which is an increase by 62.68 % compared to April 2021. There was 4 MT refined Veg Oil imported in April 2022 and 102 MT in same period of 2021 which is 96.06% lower compared to April 2021. No data for blended vegetable oil in April 2022 as well as April 2021.

In April 2022, a total of 226,060 tonnes of Palm Oil & CDSBO were lifted from the bulk storage terminals against 157,366 tonnes in March 2022, of which 159,226 tonnes i.e 70.43% was palm oil and rest 66,834 tonnes i.e. 29.57% was CDSBO. Trading volume vis-a-vis lifting of edible oils from bulk storage facilities have been increasing compared to previous month based on supply and demand of the products.

Palm oil and soybean consumption has shown an increase, in Ramadan period, which is the vital reason for more delivery/lifting of cargo. Indonesian Government had put on hold on exporting their palm oil products to fulfil their domestic market until further notice, therefore palm oil products were imported less significantly in April 2022. Bangladesh Government is actively looking for alternate source of vegetable oils from other exporting country in the world.