Casde: China cuts 21/22 edible oil outputs on lower oilseed imports

China has reduced its forecast for edible vegetable oil production for the current marketing year as imports for oilseeds have declined, the monthly update to China’s Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates (Casde) showed on Tuesday.

The country is now expected to produce 28 million mt of edible oil during the 2021/22 crop year, down 150,000 mt from the previous 28.15 million mt estimates.

“(It is) mainly because edible oilseed imports dropped, leading to a downgrade in edible vegetable oil production,” the report said.

However, “the obvious increase of domestic rapeseed production limits the decline of edible oil output,” it added.

Chinese government analysts have maintained an unchanged estimate for edible oil imports of 7.43 million mt.

Of the total, imports for palm oil and soyoil were cut by 300,000 mt and 170,000 mt from their previous outlooks to 3.7 million mt and 630,000 mt, respectively.

Consumption of edible oil was expected to be stable at 36.34 million mt.

Accordingly, the year-end balance between supply and demand for 2021/22 edible oil dropped 150,000 mt from the previous estimates to minus 1.18 million mt.

For other essential agricultural products, estimates in the report remained unchanged for both the 2021/22 and 2022/23 marketing years.

Estimates for corn production and imports for the 2022/23 marketing year were stable at 272.56 million mt and 18 million mt, respectively.

“Weather conditions in most corn-producing areas are better than last year, conducive to corn’s growth… It is expected that China’s corn yield will reach a record high, and the production will be stable or slightly increased from the previous year,” the report said.

On the demand side, “high quality and the increased price of wheat will restrict its usage in animal feed, (so) feed consumption for corn is expected to remain at a high level”.

Corn imports and production in the 2021/22 marketing year went unchanged at 20 million mt and 272.55 million mt.

For soybeans, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) also kept its forecasts for imports and production for the new crop year at 95.2 million mt and 19.48 million mt.

Soybean consumption for 2022/23 remained at 112.87 million mt, leaving the year-end balance between supply and demand unchanged at 1.66 million mt.