The operation rate this week (Aug. 11th- 17th) grows higher than expectation with most mills in operation. For one thing, mills in Rizhao and Tianjin start up machines with assured electricity supply when autumn comes; for another, easing stock pressure on soybean meal these weeks and uneasy preservation of Brazilian soybeans for high oil content both send a sharp increase of operation rate. As such, national soybean crush is advanced to 1,951,792 tonnes (1,541,915 tonnes of soybean meal, 370,840 tonnes of soybean oil), 240,442 tonnes or 14.04% above 1,711,350 tonnes last week. Meantime, soybean processing rate (capacity utilization) also climbs to 55.88% from 49.54% on the week, about 6.34 percentage points higher. Total soybean crush in week 34 next week, according to Cofeed, will probably reach 1.98 Mln tonnes and even 2 Mln tonnes in week 35 provided if operation rate remains exceedingly high in the next two weeks in mills.

    Soybean crush in year 2017/2018 (as from 1 October 2017) now total 78,286,762 tonnes, a rise of 1,390,285 tonnes or 1.8% vis-a-vis 76,896,477 tonnes in year 2016/17. National soybean crush in calendar year 2018 (as from 1 January 2018) has totaled 53,681,142 tonnes, still 514,537 tonnes or 0.94% lower than 54,195,679 tonnes on a year-on-year basis.

 

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

Details for weekly crush are shown as follows: