Soybean crush dropped sharply in week 40 (Sept. 28-Oct. 4) as mills shut down for the National Day holiday and some in Rizhao restricted production for environmental protection. Soybean crush at domestic mills totaled 1,155,700 tonnes (meal 913,003 tonnes and oil 219,583 tonnes), down 659,450 tonnes, or 36.33%, from 1815,150 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, the operation rate (capacity utilization) was 31.88%, down 18.19 percentage points from 50.07% in the previous week. Soybean crush will stay at a low level this week as most mills have yet resumed production, and is predicted to be around 1.30 mln tonnes this week and rise to around 1.69 mln tonnes in week 42. 

 

As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 85,084,600 tonnes in the crushing year of 2018/19 (from October 1st, 2018), down 4,785,272 tonnes, or 5.32%, from 89,869,872 tonnes of the same period last year; in 2019 (from Jan. 1st, 2019), national soybean crush amounts to 62,701,815 tonnes, down 3,970,765 tonnes, or 5.95%, from 66,672,580 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: