Oil mills continue picking up operation rates this week (Apr. 18-24), but the pickup is smaller than the forecast due to some delayed soybean vessels. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,674,900 tonnes (meal 1,323,171 tonnes and oil 318,231 tonnes), up 92,500 tonnes or 5.84% from 1,582,400 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 48.24%, up 2.9% from 45.34% in the previous week. Soybean crush will continue to rise to around 1.75mln tonnes and 1.76 mln tonnes in the next two weeks, respectively.
Soybean crush nationwide is estimated at 6.72 mln tonnes in April at current utilization rate, above 6.5783 mln tonnes in the previous month and but below 7.1429 mln tonnes of the corresponding period last year.
As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 46,038,414 tonnes in the soybean crop year of 2019/20 (from October 1st, 2019), down 1,310,221 tonnes or 2.8% from 47,348,635 tonnes of the same period last year. In calendar year of 2020 (from Jan. 1st, 2020), national soybean crush amounts to 24,012,000 tonnes, down 18,5235 tonnes or 0.07% from 24,197,235 tonnes of the corresponding period in 2019.
Fig.: Soybean Weekly Crush in China (2016-2020)
Details for weekly crush by region and by group are shown as follows:
