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Note: This article was AI-translated from Arabic and is currently under manual review. The author is not responsible for any translation errors. Please refer to the original Arabic text for the most accurate and authoritative information.
On 10 November 2026, the US Department of Agriculture released its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, number 677. At first glance, the oilseed picture looks comfortable: the world is heading for the largest crop in its history. But these headline figures are like a seed's hull: crack it open, and a very different picture of vegetable oils appears. Demand is growing at almost three times the pace of production, and the ratio of global stocks to consumption is falling for the second season in a row.
This is the first article in a monthly series from Zyot W Dhon that reads the WASDE report from the perspective of oilseeds, oils and fats. We start here with the full picture, and the following articles take each theme in detail.
The report puts world oilseed production for 2026/27 at about 721.9 million tonnes, up 20.6 million tonnes (2.9%) from the previous season. Soybeans lead the increase, with global output expected at 442.5 million tonnes, including a record Brazilian crop of 186 million tonnes and a US crop of 124.5 million tonnes.
Vegetable oil production, by contrast, rises by only 2.3 million tonnes (1%) to 243.2 million tonnes, while consumption rises 6.6 million tonnes (2.8%) to 237.4 million tonnes. As a result, global vegetable oil ending stocks fall to 29.7 million tonnes, and the stocks-to-use ratio drops to 12.5%, compared with 13.2% last season and 13.4% in 2024/25.
| World indicator (million tonnes) | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | 2026/27* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oilseed production | 687.1 | 701.3 | 721.9 |
| Oilmeal production | 392.6 | 409.2 | 416.5 |
| Vegetable oil production | 230.8 | 240.9 | 243.2 |
| Vegetable oil consumption | 224.0 | 230.8 | 237.4 |
| Vegetable oil ending stocks | 30.1 | 30.5 | 29.7 |
| Vegetable oil stocks-to-use | 13.4% | 13.2% | 12.5% |
| Oilmeal stocks-to-use | 5.9% | 6.0% | 6.1% |
* November 2026 projections. Source: WASDE-677; ratios calculated by Zyot W Dhon.
The first reason lies in the crop itself. A soybean contains only about 18–20% oil by weight; the rest is mostly protein meal. So when most of the growth in oilseeds comes from soybeans, the world gets far more meal than oil. The report's numbers show this clearly: oilmeal production rises 7.3 million tonnes, more than three times the increase in oils, and the oilmeal stocks-to-use ratio stays stable at around 6%.
The second reason is that soybean oil alone accounts for about 72% of the expected increase in global vegetable oil production (1.67 million tonnes out of 2.33 million tonnes). All other oils combined, led by palm oil, rapeseed (canola) oil and sunflower oil, add only about 0.7 million tonnes. The same effect shows up in stocks: while global soybean oil stocks rise slightly to 6.5 million tonnes, stocks of all other oils combined fall by about 1.1 million tonnes.
For sunflower specifically, the report cut world production by 0.5 million tonnes this month on smaller crops in Russia and Argentina. Even with a large Ukrainian crop, Black Sea sunflower oil exports remain constrained by port damage and shipping risks, a topic we will cover in a separate article in this series.
On the demand side, the United States stands out. Its vegetable oil consumption rises 2.4 million tonnes in a single season, about 36% of the entire increase in global consumption, and most of that increase goes into biodiesel and renewable diesel.
The report expects 17.8 billion pounds (about 8.1 million tonnes) of US soybean oil to go into biofuels in 2026/27, up from 14.9 billion pounds last season and 11.8 billion pounds two seasons ago. That means biofuels will absorb about 54% of US soybean oil production, up from 40% in 2024/25. This season's increase alone (about 1.3 million tonnes) equals nearly 20% of the growth in global vegetable oil consumption.
This is directly linked to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to raise blending mandates. The biomass-based diesel requirement was set at about 5.4 billion gallons for 2026, up from 3.35 billion gallons in 2025, rising to 5.7 billion gallons in 2027. With this much oil going into fuel inside the United States, its exports have almost disappeared: the report expects US soybean oil exports to fall to only about 181,000 tonnes, after exceeding 1.1 million tonnes in 2024/25.
The United States is not alone in this trend. Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, made a B50 blend mandatory on 1 July 2026, with 1 October 2026 set as the date for all fuel stations to sell it. Analysts estimate this will raise Indonesia's domestic use of crude palm oil by around 3 million tonnes a year compared with B40. The overall result is that a growing share of oils is consumed inside the producing countries themselves. World vegetable oil trade is almost flat at 90.6 million tonnes, and its share of production falls from 38.3% in 2024/25 to 37.2% in 2026/27. Simply put, the exportable surplus is not growing as fast as consumption.
One of the clearest signs of this shift is how the value of a soybean is split between oil and meal. At the average prices projected in the report (68 cents per pound for crude soybean oil and $340 per short ton for meal), a bushel crushed in US plants yields about 11.9 pounds of oil worth $8.06 and about 47.3 pounds of meal worth $8.05. In other words, oil now accounts for about 50% of the value of crush products, compared with about 44% in 2024/25, after many years in which meal held the clearly larger share and drove crush economics.
| Season | Oil value ($/bushel) | Meal value ($/bushel) | Oil share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 5.69 | 7.18 | 44% |
| 2025/26 | 7.42 | 7.72 | 49% |
| 2026/27* | 8.06 | 8.05 | 50% |
* Calculated by Zyot W Dhon from the crush volumes, production and average prices in the report (crude soybean oil, Decatur; 48% protein soybean meal, Decatur).
This means US crushers increasingly run "for the oil", and any change in biofuel policy or crude oil prices passes quickly into the oil price, and from there into the price of the soybean itself. We saw this in practice in early November, when a sharp drop in crude oil prices pressured CBOT soybean oil futures in Chicago and spilled over into soybean oil export prices in Argentina and Brazil.
For oil importers, refiners and packers, the key message is that abundant oilseeds do not necessarily mean cheap oils. Vegetable oil prices are now supported by policy-driven demand that does not easily retreat when prices rise, and at the same time they have become more volatile because they are tied to crude oil prices and to biofuel decisions in Washington and Jakarta.
For oilmeals the picture is different: ample production and stable stocks, which works in favour of feed manufacturers. The gap between the oil and meal markets therefore looks likely to persist, an equation closely watched by countries expanding their domestic crushing, such as Algeria, where the report raised crush estimates this month.
The next WASDE report is due on 10 December 2026, and we will return to these indicators then. The next articles in this series will look in detail at US soybean oil and biofuels, soybean trade between the United States, China and Brazil, Argentina as the largest exporter of soybean oil and meal, the Black Sea sunflower market, and the expansion of crushing in North Africa.
Source: World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE-677), US Department of Agriculture, 10 November 2026. Calculations and analysis: Zyot W Dhon.