Some crushers are facing ballooning soybean meal inventories or temporary soybean supply shortages as cargoes are unable to row ashore after heavy rains pulled up waters, so operation rates have fallen from high levels this week (July 18-24). Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,955,300 tonnes (meal 1,544,687 tonnes and oil 371,507 tonnes), down 108,200 tonnes or 5.24% from 2,063,500 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 56.32%, down 3.11% from 59.43% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to be around 1.96 mln tonnes and 2.05 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 71,791,264 tonnes in the soybean crop year of 2019/20 (from October 1st, 2019), up 2,684,279 tonnes or 3.88% from 69,106,985 tonnes of the same period last year. In calendar year of 2020 (from Jan. 1st, 2020), national soybean crush amounts to 49,807,750 tonnes, up 3,852,165 tonnes or 8.38% from 45,955,585 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: