Crushers lower down operation rates as expected and with the decline larger than expected this week (Oct 24-30), as some are in maintenance time and some suspend for soybean shortages or for swelling meal inventories. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 2,093,480 tonnes (meal 1,653,849 tonnes and oil 397,761 tonnes), down 103,770 tonnes or 4.72% from 2,197,250 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 59.79%, down 3.47% from 63.26% in the previous week. Soybean crush is expected to rise to 2.13 mln tonnes and to 2.15 mln tonnes in the next two weeks, respectively.

Soybean crush nationwide is estimated at 8.61 mln tonnes in October at current utilization rate, lower than 9.1015 mln tonnes in the previous month but far above 6.6918 mln tonnes of the corresponding period last year.

In the crop year of 2020/21 (from Oct 1st, 2020), China’s soybean crush totals 8,301,844 tonnes, up 1,314,844 tonnes or 18.82% from 6,987,000 tonnes a year earlier.

In the calendar year of 2020 (from Jan. 1st, 2020), China’s soybean crush amounts to 77,908,530 tonnes, up 8,879,845 tonnes or 11.39% from 69,028,685 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: