The past month has been a relatively uneventful one, with international markets coming to a decent equilibrium. Since the last article Indonesia extended the Levy free period from august end all the way to the end of October, as is the case the market continues to speculate whether this will continue to extend, as the government fund is sitting on a huge amount of cash ($1bn+) and with the parity in price between palm and energy the government is not using the fund for subsidizing the biodiesel mandate. As of now there is no official statement as to whether it will be extended or not, but with physical players well sold for October it is a sign that there isn’t strong confidence that the levy exemption will be extended.
Freight wise we are also seeing the market soften and realizing the inverse in the charter market (unlike we had seen with palm earlier in the year). Vessels are more readily available, though one cannot say that they are abundant. With a lot of macro shocks early on in the year all the charterers and vessel owners remain skeptical about booking too far out and are keeping some vessels on hand to find spot demand where people will be looking to evacuate oil.
We had the chance to go visit some origin players this month and discuss directly on the current market dynamics and the general consensus is that Indonesia is still sitting on heavy stocks of 7mMT+, but the players have been able to balance this heaviness across the supply chain which removed the need for suppliers to sell cargos at steep discounts to the destination, which we can see reflected in the discount of Indonesia to Malaysia. On the ground in larger plantations the crop is still performing well with many players expecting double digit growth over last year, though the average production growth in Indonesia handicapped by the smallholders who were unable to gain access to sufficient fertilizer to support the crops.
Malaysia wise the consensus was that August was the peak in production and September would be flat MoM, though exports have been performing quite well despite more expensive values out of Malaysia in contrast to Indonesia, which would imply that there will be less of a stock build at the origin.
Based on the above the perception is that the market will continue to trade in a range with no major corrections for flat price in the near term. Pressure will come on oil from American soy, as they look to harvest a reasonable crop starting this month, and the market hasn’t fully priced in the magnitude of the supply that the crop can produce.
过去一个月市场相对平静，各国际市场总体态势均衡。之前提到的印尼将免征税期从8月底一直延长到10月底，由于目前政府基金现金规模巨大（超过 10 亿美元），而棕榈油和生柴价格接近，政府并未使用该基金来补贴生物柴油，市场仍在猜测免征税期是否会继续延长。截止目前，关于是否会延长免征税期的官方声明仍未发布，但结合10 月份现货销售旺盛的表现，体现了业内对延长免征税期的信心不足。
物流方面，市场疲软和货运租赁的逆向趋势显现（与今年早些时候棕油物流的上涨不同）。油船资源虽不能说非常丰富，但已经更容易获得。受今年早些时候出现的众多宏观冲击影响，租船公司和船东仍对大量船只预订持有谨慎态度，选择保留一些船只在手以应对现货输出的物流需求。
本月我们有机会拜访了一些原产地企业，面对面沟通讨论了当前的市场动态，普遍的共识是印尼仍然拥有超过700万吨的高库存，但市场参与者已经能够在整个供应链中平衡这样的高库存状态，而不需以极低的折扣价格将货物出售到目的地市场，这也能从印尼给马来西亚的折扣价格中体现。在大规模种植园，作物生长状态仍然良好，许多业内参与者预计相比去年产量将有两位数的增长，然而小规模的种植园由于无法获得足够肥料来支持作物生长，产量将收到影响，而这也将阻碍印尼的平均产量增长。
马来西亚方面，整体共识是8 月是生产高峰，9 月环比持平，尽管与印尼相比，马来西亚出口价格更高，但整体出口表现强劲，而这也将使原产地的累库压力减小。
基于上述观点，市场仍将继续在一定区间内交易，短期内价格不会有一个非常明确的方向性。压力将从美豆向油类产品转移，预计美豆收获期将从本月逐渐开始，针对大豆的产量及供给，油类的市场价格调整尚未完全体现。