Oil mills across the country are trying to maintain production in order to meet strong demand for soybean oil, though some mills have limited the crushing in Shandong Province; hence, operation rates continue rising this week (Dec 12-18). Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 2,007,180 tonnes (meal 1,585,672 tonnes and oil 381,364 tonnes), up 56,400 tonnes or 2.89% from 1,950,780 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 57.33%, up 1.62% from 55.71% in the previous week. Soybean crush is predicted to be 1.95 mln tonnes and 2.08 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

In the crop year of 2020/21 (from Oct 1st, 2020), China’s soybean crush totals 22,144,104 tonnes, up 3,252,404 tonnes or 17.22% from 18,891,700 tonnes a year earlier.

In the calendar year of 2020 (from Jan. 1st, 2020), China’s soybean crush amounts to 91,750,790 tonnes, up 10,817,405 tonnes or 12.86% from 80,933,385 tonnes of the corresponding period in 2019.

Fig.: Soybean Weekly Crush in China (2016-2020)

Details for weekly crush by region are shown as follows: