Chinese vegetable oil consumption for food use is forecast steady to firm in the October 2021-September 2022 marketing year, supporting waste biodiesel feedstock used cooking oil (UCO) availability.
The China National Grain and Oils Information Centre (CNGOIC) estimates vegetable oil use for food will rise by 2.3pc from the prior marketing year to 37.8mn t in 2021-22, supported by a strong food service industry and online food sales. But the country's agriculture and rural affairs ministry sees consumption near flat on the year at 35.54mn t.
Around 10mn t of waste cooking oil is produced each year in China, of which roughly 10pc is recovered after use and recommodified as UCO.
Consumption will grow across China's four major vegetable oils, with proportions remaining similar at 46pc soybean oil, 23pc rapeseed oil, 11pc palm oil and 6pc sunflower seed oil, according to the US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) in China.
UCO from different types of vegetable oil has varying iodine values (IV), with its relatively high soybean and rapeseed oil content lifting the average IV of Chinese cargoes to at least 80g iodine/hg compared with just 50g/hg for palm oil-dominated UCO from Malaysia and Indonesia. Feedstock IV level in turn determines the cold weather properties of its finished biodiesel, with higher IV UCO producing UCO methyl ester with a lower cold filter plugging point better suited for use in low temperatures.
The USDA FAS forecasts Chinese vegetable oil imports will fall slightly to 12.4mn t in 2021-22 from 12.5mn t in the current marketing year, as soybean imports and domestic crushing volumes increase by 3pc each to 101mn t and 98mn t respectively in 2021-22.
