Vegetable Oil Prices Sink on Bearish Supply, Demand Data

Vegetable oil prices were mixed on Thursday, with palm oil prices under additional selling pressure as worries over slowing demand offset a smaller-than-expected increase in Malaysian palm oil stocks for May. Nearby soybean oil futures also ended lower, shrugging off overnight and early gains inspired by hot weather concerns and initial strength in soybean prices. Soybean oil futures sold off after the midday release of monthly supply and demand data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) triggered selling in old-crop soybean futures.

In its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report for June, USDA kept its predictions of soybean oil used in biofuel production in 2020/21 and 2021/22 unchanged at 9.5 billion pounds and 12 billion pounds, respectively. The USDA’s 2020/21 figure is 970 million pounds below The Jacobsen’s estimate, while its…