This week (Sept 21st-27th), downstream buyers have nearly completed their replenishment now that it is just one week left ahead of the National Day, so mills have slightly reduced their operation rates. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,815,150 tonnes (meal 1,433,968 tonnes and oil 344,878 tonnes), down 29,300 tonnes, or 1.62%, from 1,829,000 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, the operation rate (capacity utilization) is 50.07%, down 0.48 percentage points from 50.55% last week. Soybean crush will drastically drop next week as mills in Shandong and North China cut down their operation rates due to the holidays and the parade, so the crush is expected to be around 1.11 mln tonnes next week, but it will increase to 1.43 mln tonnes that following week. 

 

Soybean crush nationwide is estimated at 7.45 mln tonnes in September at current utilization rate, below the 7.57 mln tonnes in August and 7.97 mln tonnes of the corresponding period last year. 

 

As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 84,697,515 tonnes in the crushing year of 2018/19 (from October, 2018), down 4,635,885 tonnes, or 5.18%, from 89,333,400 tonnes of the same period last year; in 2019 (from Jan. 1st, 2019), national soybean crush amounts to 61,546,115 tonnes, down 3,386,565 tonnes, or 5.21%, from 64,932,680 tonnes of the corresponding period in 2018, according to Cofeed. 

 

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

 

Details for weekly crush by region and by group are shown as follows: