China may increase its import of soybean oil to the highest level in the last two years in the next two months.

According to Oil World (Germany) forecasts, China may increase its import of soybean oil to 320-330 thousand tons during July to September of this year, which would be the highest level for the specified period in the last 2 years and more than three times higher than the import volume in the same quarter a year earlier (103 thousand tons).

The increase in imports is expected due to relatively low soybean oil stocks in China as of the end of June, as well as low oilseed processing volumes and, consequently, reduced soybean oil production.

In particular, analysts expect China to purchase around 200 thousand tons of soybean oil from Argentina, 100 thousand tons from Brazil, and the rest will be supplied from Russia.

Thus, China’s total soybean oil imports in 2022/23 marketing year (October-September) could reach 670-680 thousand tons, almost doubling the result of the 2021/22 marketing year (347 thousand tons), but significantly lower than the 2020/21 marketing year (1.28 million tons).