Some millers are facing a temporary soybean shortage as they are unable to discharge soybean vessels when berths are under strain at ports, and some are struggling with ballooning soybean meal inventories, so soybean crush continues to decrease this week (Aug 8-14). Specifically, soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,965,800 tonnes (meal 1,552,982 tonnes and oil 373,502 tonnes), down 78,600 tonnes or 3.8% from 2,044,400 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 56.62%, down 2.26% from 58.88% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to increase to around 2 mln tonnes and 2.05 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

 As of this week, soybean crush nationwide totals 77,863,064 tonnes in the soybean crop year of 2019/20 (from Oct 1st, 2019), up 4,027,479 tonnes or 5.45% from 73,835,585 tonnes of the same period last year. In calendar year of 2020 (from Jan. 1st, 2020), national soybean crush amounts to 55,833,550 tonnes, up 5,149,365 tonnes or 10.16% from 50,684,185 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: