As the operation rate in oil mills falls this week (Apr. 21st-27th) owing to less soybean meal delivery and increasing idle plants after bloated meals in mills, national soybean crush now amounts to 1,718,750 tonnes (1,366,406 tonnes of soybean meal, 309,375 tonnes of soybean oil), generally decreasing by 4.78% or 86,450 tonnes vis-a-vis 1,805,200 tonnes last week. Meantime, soybean processing capacity utilization falls to 50.33%, 2.53 percentage points lower than 52.86% last week. Generally speaking, total soybean crush in week 18 is expected to stay at 1.72 Mln tonnes, and probably climbs over 1.8 Mln tonnes in week 19 based on good crush margins and anticipated eased pressure on stockpiles.

    Judging from current soybean processing capacity, April soybean crush nationwide is estimated to be around 7.26 Mln tonnes, a tad lower than 7.3631 Mln tonnes last month, but higher than 7.13284 Mln tonnes the previous year.

    Soybean crush in year 2017/2018 (as from 1 October 2017) has now totaled 50,889,670 tonnes, 5.47% or 2,639,693 tonnes higher than 48,249,977 tonnes attained in year 2016/17. While national soybean crush in year 2018 (as from 1 January 2018) has risen to 26,554,050 tonnes, a growth of 3.93% or 1,004,871 tonnes as compared to 25,549,179 tonnes year on year.

                          Figure: Trends of Soybean Weekly Crush in China (2014-2018)