This week (Jul. 27th-Aug. 2nd), the operation rate has dropped again due to continued pressure from soybean meal inventory and some emergency shutdowns for typhoon Wipha. Soybean crush totals 1,492,600 tonnes (meal 1,179,154 tonnes and oil 283,594 tonnes), a reduction of 75,000 tonnes by 4.78% from 1,567,600 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, the operation rate (capacity utilization) is 41.78%, down 2.1 percentage points from 43.88% last week. Amid the pickup in operation rate, soybean crush is predicted to return to around 1.60 mln tonnes next week and to around 1.80 mln tonnes the following week. 

As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 70,599,315 tonnes in the crushing year of 2018/19 (from October, 2018), down 3,804,333 tonnes by 5.11% from 74,403,648 tonnes of the same period last year. In 2019 (from Jan. 1st, 2019), national soybean crush amounts to 47,447,915 tonnes, down 2,555,013 tonnes by 5.1% from 50,002,928 tonnes of the corresponding period in 2018. 

Fig.: Soybean Weekly Crush in China (2015-2019)

Details for weekly crush are shown as follows: