This week (Oct. 26th-Nov. 1), soybean crush declines at a higher-than-expected pace due to supply shortages, and as some mills have to limit or suspend production due to environmental protection in Qingdao and Rizhao, Shandong. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,554,450 tonnes (meal 1,228,015 tonnes and oil 295,345 tonnes), down 195,500 tonnes, or 11.1%, from 1,749,950 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, the operation rate (capacity utilization) is 42.88%, down 5.39 percentage points from 48.27% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to increase slightly to around 1.66 mln tonnes next week and to 1.80 mln tonnes that following week. Some soybean imports now are for state reserves, instead of for mills, so some mills may have to halt production due to a lack of soybeans early November. 

 

As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 6,987,000 tonnes in the crushing year of 2019/20 (from October 1st, 2019), down 1,853,385 tonnes, or 20.96%, from 8,840,385 tonnes of the same period last year. In 2019 (from Jan. 1st, 2019), national soybean crush amounts to 69,028,415 tonnes, down 5,241,765 tonnes, or 7.05%, from 74,270,180 tonnes of the corresponding period in 2018. 

 

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

 

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