China's soyabean imports fall in September

China's soyabean imports fell to 2.75 million tonnes in September, dropping to their lowest since October last year in what traders said was a necessary but brief pause in this year's buying spree. Imports fell for a third month after touching a record 4.7 million tonnes in June as Beijing wound down its biggest ever strategic inventory build-up, a factor that is expected to yet cut October arrivals even further.
Imports dropped from 3.13 million tonnes in August, but were still slightly above earlier Ministry of Commerce estimates. Tight supply from Argentina, the third largest exporter, has partly led to the low imports, traders said, but they expected cargoes of cheap US soyabeans to arrive at the end of the month or early next month, easing emerging shortages, they said. "Buyers will still need to buy more for December and January shipment, but they would like wait and see what the situation will be after huge arrivals of soya from the end of the month," said one trader with an international trading house.
Traders estimate that October imports will fall to 2.5 million tonnes or even below 2 million tonnes, but imports in November and December will exceed 4 million tonnes each month. Cheap US prices in anticipation of a larger harvest have had spurred Chinese buyers to book large amount of new crops. Beijing's decision not to sell domestic reserves at a lower price have also encouraged more imports.
Soya imports in the first nine months rose 12.8 percent to 32.36 million tonnes. Imports of vegetable oils, including palmoil and soyaoil, reached 970,000 tonnes in September, a rise of 23 percent from August, according to the data. Imports of vegetable oils rose 9.7 percent to 6.13 million tonnes in the first nine months. The low imports have caused shortages for some crushers, which have been forced to shut down, leading to tightening supply of soyameal, the feed ingredient for animal feed, traders said.
Chinese crushers need about 3.5 million tonnes every month under normal operation. Chinese buyers over the past week has shifted their buying focus to new South American crops for shipment after May next year due to attractive prices, traders said.
Low soya imports have supported soyameal and soyaoil prices after the week-long National Day holidays, lifting crushing margins to about 200 yuan ($29.30) per tonne after they had fallen to negative in the summer. The Chinese government pledged this week to continue to stockpile soyabeans from the new harvest due to begin within the next few weeks, and farmers are expecting a price higher than last year amid anticipation of lower output.