As crushing plants pick up operation rates higher than expected with incoming soybeans this week (Jul 25-31), soybean crush at domestic mills totals 2,061,600 tonnes (meal 1,628,664 tonnes and oil 391,704 tonnes), up 106,300 tonnes or 5.4% from 1,955,300 tonnes in the previous week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 59.38%, up 3.06% from 56.32% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to continue increasing to around 2.08 mln tonnes and 2.12 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

Soybean crush nationwide is estimated at 8.88 mln tonnes in July at current utilization rate, above 8.7332 mln tonnes in the previous month and also far above 6.7083 mln tonnes of the corresponding period last year.

As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 73,852,864 tonnes in the soybean crop year of 2019/20 (from October 1st, 2019), up 3,253,279 tonnes or 4.60% from 70,599,585 tonnes of the same period last year. In calendar year of 2020 (from Jan. 1st, 2020), national soybean crush amounts to 51,823,350 tonnes, up 4,375,165 tonnes or 9.22% from 47,448,185 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: