Soybean Oil: export from Canada to Southeast Asia

Soybean oil is bought either crude for local refining or refined to a finished specification, and the choice should follow your own capability, not the price differential. Toll refining an imported crude rarely survives the arithmetic at food-import volumes.

For refined oil the specification is colour, free fatty acid, peroxide value, flavour and oxidative stability. Stability is the parameter that matters disproportionately in a hot humid supply chain and the one most often left off an enquiry.

Format drives landed cost as much as the oil price: flexitank, ISO tank, drums and IBC totes carry different minimums and different terminal requirements. Confirm what your port and facility can receive before optimising the per-tonne number.

Canadian soybean oil comes off the Ontario and Quebec crop and crushing base, which generally means eastern port routing.

Crude and refined oil do not share a tariff line in most schedules, so the decision to import crude for local refining changes the duty position as well as the logistics. Confirm both forms before choosing between them.