Spot vegetable oil trading opened the holiday-shortened week in very quiet fashion. Market participants reiterated that most action for February/March has been wrapped up, and buying interest for the second quarter and beyond remains fairly muted thus far. While crude corn oil prices in the Midwest were flat, refined corn oil indications did nudge out of their recent spread, moving down to a range in the mid to high 60 cents/lb FOB. On the year, refined corn oil prices are down 37 percent in value.

Offtake from the food and biofuel sectors for edible oils remains lackluster. This is due to a normal seasonal decline in consumption from the food industry and slower-than-expected U.S. renewable diesel (RD) demand growth. New RD diesel plants have struggled to commence start-up operations, and this has helped cause a pile-up of veg oil feedstocks in the Midwest. 
 
Figure 1.

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