Thanks to a half month of machine halt in some mills, soybean meal is seen eased in its stockpiles. As such, operation rate recovers this week dated from May 12th to 18th, correspondingly, national soybean crush this week comes into at 1,582,450 tonnes (1,250,135 tonnes of soybean meal, 300,665 tonnes of soybean oil), increasing by 7.92% or 116,200 tonnes vis-a-vis 1,466,250 tonnes last week. Meantime, soybean processing capacity utilization rises to 45.81%, 3.37 percentage points higher than 42.44% last week. Since the Summit for Shanghai Cooperation Organization is to be held in Qingdao in June, mills away from Qingdao within 200 kilometers are required to close down from May 30th to June 11th, according to a government notice. At the news, mills in Qingdao, Longkou and Rizhao, all located in Shangdong province have recently increased processing capacity in full swing to ensure an ample supply later. Such being the case, total soybean crush in week 21 nationwide, according to Cofeed, largely rise to 1.68 Mln tonnes, and even to 1.70 Mln tonnes in week 22, the week after next. 

    Based on current soybean processing capacity, May soybean crush nationwide is largely pegged at 7.10 Mln tonnes, a tad lower than 7.1792 Mln tonnes last month, and lower than 7.9191 Mln tonnes year on year. 

    Soybean crush in year 2017/2018 (as from 1 October 2017) has now totaled 55,419,620 tonnes, 3.11% or 1,673,043 tonnes higher than 53,746,577 tonnes attained in year 2016/17. While national soybean crush in calendar year 2018 (as from 1 January 2018) has increased to 31,084,000 tonnes, a growth of 0.12% or 38,221 tonnes as compared to 31,045,779 tonnes year on year.

    Details for weekly crush are shown as follows:

Area	Soybean Crush (mT)			Operation Rate (Capacity Utilization)
	Week 20	Week 19	Variation	Week 20	Week 19	Variation
Jiangsu	367,500	318,500	49,000	61.26%	53.09%	8.17%
Shandong	298,700	246,400	52,300	49.88%	41.15%	8.73%
Guangdong	185,200	170,000	15,200	45.85%	42.09%	3.76%
Hebei	122,400	74,400	48,000	67.25%	40.88%	26.37%
Guangxi	120,900	152,100	-31,200	38.81%	48.83%	-10.02%
Fujian	105,700	92,800	12,900	62.40%	54.78%	7.62%
Liaoning	77,000	60,400	16,600	34.21%	26.84%	7.38%
Tianjin	68,000	83,000	-15,000	45.18%	55.15%	-9.97%
Zhejiang	43,800	55,400	-11,600	37.69%	47.68%	-9.98%
Hubei	42,000	49,000	-7,000	85.71%	100.00%	-14.29%
Sichuan	35,400	26,400	9,000	84.29%	62.86%	21.43%
Shaanxi	24,800	30,800	-6,000	80.52%	100.00%	-19.48%
Shanghai	17,500	17,500	0	67.57%	67.57%	0.00%
Heilongjiang	15,600	12,600	3,000	9.29%	7.50%	1.79%
Anhui	15,400	15,400	0	95.65%	95.65%	0.00%
Henan	14,750	27,350	-12,600	12.25%	22.72%	-10.47%
Jilin	12,000	4,000	8,000	15.58%	5.19%	10.39%
Jiangxi	7,000	7,000	0	58.82%	58.82%	0.00%
Hunan	7,000	7,000	0	35.71%	35.71%	0.00%
Xinjiang	1,800	4,200	-2,400	32.14%	75.00%	-42.86%
Chongqing	0	12,000	-12,000	0.00%	57.14%	-57.14%
Shanxi	0	0	0	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
Inner Mongolia	0	0	0	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
Total	1,582,450	1,466,250	-116,200	45.81%	42.44%	3.36%

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