Bulk Crude Soybean Oil — Degummed Soybean Oil Supplier

What crude soybean oil is

Crude soybean oil is oil as it comes off extraction, filtered of meal fines but not yet neutralised, bleached or deodorised. It still carries the phosphatides, free fatty acids, pigments, sterols and tocopherols that a refining line removes or reduces, and those components are why an industrial buyer wants it: each one represents a process step, a yield loss or a by-product stream that belongs to whoever owns the next stage.

Degummed or non-degummed: the distinction that matters most on soy

Crude soybean oil is usually traded already degummed, and on soy that matters more than on any other major oil. Soybean oil carries a higher phosphatide load than sunflower, rapeseed or maize oil — which is why soya is the world's principal commercial source of lecithin — so the gums are a large enough fraction to change both the economics and the shipping behaviour of the oil.

Water degumming hydrates and removes the hydratable phosphatides and is what produces crude degummed soybean oil, the grade most refineries contract. Acid degumming addresses the non-hydratable fraction, which is the part that carries calcium and magnesium and that survives a water wash. Which form you want depends on whether your plant degums, whether you want the lecithin stream, and what phosphorus level your bleaching and refining loss model assumes.

There is a transport reason as well as a process reason. Gums left in the oil settle, so a non-degummed parcel arrives with a heavier bottom fraction, which affects sampling and discharge. If you are buying non-degummed, agree how the bottom is to be treated before the vessel loads rather than after it discharges.

• Why degumming mattersPhosphorus, gums and what they cost downstream
• Reading a lot certificateLine by line through a certificate of analysis

Who buys crude soybean oil, and what for

Crude soybean oil goes to buyers who own a conversion step. The four main destinations specify quite differently from each other:

• Vegetable oil refineries producing bottled and bulk edible oil. They care about phosphorus, free fatty acid and colour, because those three drive refining loss, bleaching earth consumption and the finished colour they can reach.
• Biodiesel and renewable diesel producers. Free fatty acid content governs the pretreatment route and whether esterification or hydrotreating is viable, while phosphorus, metals and water drive catalyst life.
• Oleochemical and polymer manufacturers, including producers of epoxidised soybean oil plasticisers, alkyd resins for coatings, printing inks and lubricant base stocks, for whom the unsaturated fatty acid profile is the functional property.
• Feed compounders using the oil as a concentrated energy source in rations, where the test list is short and contaminant screening matters more than process parameters.

How crude soybean oil price is formed

Crude soybean oil is priced against an international market rather than from a published list, so we do not post a figure and an offer is built for your specific parcel. A quotation reflects the volume, the loading window, whether the oil is degummed, the packing format and the destination you name, which is why two enquiries on the same day can reasonably receive different numbers.

The drivers worth monitoring if you are timing a purchase are the soybean oil futures complex and crush margins, the South American and North American harvest cycles, biofuel mandate demand in the major consuming markets, the relative price of competing oils, freight, currency, and how tight loading slots are in the window you want.

• Sunflower against soybean, on priceHow the two markets have tracked each other
• Vegetable oil as biodiesel feedstockThe technical parameters a fuel producer sets

Codex reference figures for soya bean oil

The figures below are the limits set by the Codex Alimentarius standard for named vegetable oils (CODEX STAN 210-1999), which names this oil soya bean oil. They describe the standard, not a single consignment: the certificate of analysis issued with your shipment is what governs, and your own specification may be tighter.

• Relative density (20°C/water at 20°C): 0.919 – 0.925
• Refractive index (ND 40°C): 1.466 – 1.470
• Saponification value: 189 – 195 mg KOH/g oil
• Iodine value: 124 – 139
• Unsaponifiable matter: not more than 15 g/kg
• Acid value, cold pressed and virgin oils: not more than 4.0 mg KOH/g
• Peroxide value, cold pressed and virgin oils: up to 15 milliequivalents of active oxygen per kg

Read the two halves of that list differently. The identity characteristics apply to the oil whatever its processing state, so they are the right reference for confirming that what arrived is soya bean oil and has not been blended with a cheaper oil. The quality limits, however, are written for refined grades and for cold pressed and virgin grades: Codex sets no free fatty acid or peroxide ceiling for crude oil destined for refining. That absence is why crude is always contracted against the buyer's own thresholds rather than against the standard.

What a refiner or biodiesel producer should specify

Send the limits your process requires and we will confirm against them before loading. A complete crude soybean oil enquiry normally sets:

• Whether you want the oil degummed or non-degummed, and if degummed, water or acid degummed.
• A free fatty acid ceiling, expressed as acid value or as a percentage, whichever your contracts use.
• Moisture and volatile matter, and insoluble impurities, separately or combined as your contract does it.
• A phosphorus limit, which is the parameter that most often decides whether a parcel suits a given refinery.
• Trace metal limits, particularly iron, copper, calcium and magnesium, for oxidation in transit and catalyst life downstream.
• The laboratory method for each parameter, named in the contract, because a number without a method cannot be compared between suppliers.
• Volume, packing format, destination port, Incoterm and loading window.

One point for fuel and renewable-diesel buyers specifically. If your market requires a consignment to be certified under a voluntary sustainability scheme such as ISCC in order to count towards a national obligation, say so at the enquiry stage: we hold HACCP and ISO 22000 and do not hold ISCC certification, and it is better that both sides know that before a contract is drafted than after a cargo has loaded.

Sampling, inspection and verification at loading

A crude oil contract is only as good as the sample behind it. A composite sample is drawn at loading and the certificate of analysis reports against the parameters the contract names. Crude oil is less homogeneous than refined oil, and a degummed parcel behaves differently in a tank from a non-degummed one, so specify how the sample is to be drawn — from the loading line or from the tank, and whether retained samples are to be held and for how long.

Where your purchase terms require independent verification, you may appoint a third-party inspector — SGS, Intertek and Bureau Veritas are the names buyers most often use — to attend sampling and loading at your own cost. The appointment is yours rather than ours; that is exactly what makes the report worth relying on in a dispute.

Packing and bulk formats

Crude soybean oil moves in bulk, because a buyer who intends to refine or convert it has tank capacity to receive it. The formats we load are:

• Flexitank, for a full container load into a port with liquid bulk handling and onward road tankering.
• ISO tank, where a dedicated stainless vessel is preferred, typically on a repeat lane into the same receiver.
• Steel drums of 190 kg, for small parcels, trial lots and formulation work at oleochemical and resin plants.
• IBC, where a part load has to reach a site with no tank intake.

Tell us the destination port and the discharge facilities there and we will say which formats are practical on that lane. Crude oil is not bottled, so retail packing does not apply to this grade.

Trade terms, payment and documentation

We quote FOB or CIF to a named port under Incoterms 2020. Under FOB you book the vessel and carry freight and marine insurance from the port of shipment; under CIF we arrange carriage and insurance to the port you name and quote one landed figure. The port must be named in the contract either way. Payment is by bank transfer (T/T) in EUR or USD, and lead time is typically 7 to 14 days from order confirmation.

A certificate of analysis and a certificate of origin accompany every consignment, alongside the commercial invoice, the packing list and the bill of lading. Oil imported for industrial or fuel use rather than food use can attract different requirements at the border depending on how the destination classifies it, so name the import country early and we will confirm what else has to travel with the goods.

How to enquire

Refine Sunflower Oil manufactures and exports edible oils from Gareth Jones St 8, 04119 Kyiv, Ukraine, and has been exporting since 2000. Our operation runs to HACCP and ISO 22000 food safety standards, and non-GMO grades are available on request. Write to export@refinesunfloweroil.com, or use the contact form, with the volume, whether you need degummed or non-degummed oil, the packing format, the destination port, the Incoterm and the specification limits your process works to. Email is the quickest route to a firm offer.

• Export and logisticsHow we pack, document and ship each consignment
• Request a quotationSend volume, limits, packing and destination port

The refined counterpart

The degummed grade on this page is a refinery input. Buyers wanting oil ready for food use take the refined version.

• Refined soybean oilRBD soybean oil for bulk food use
• Crude canola oilDegummed rapeseed oil as a refinery input
• All sunflower oil gradesThe full range we export, refined and crude