With the approaching of the Chinese Lunar New Year, operation rates are drastically lower in week 6 (Feb 6-12). Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 913,600 tonnes (meal 721,744 tonnes and oil 173,584 tonnes), down 1,073,700 tonnes or 54.03% from 1,987,300 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 25.76%, down 30.28% from 56.04% in the previous week.

Operation rates further decline in week 7 (Feb 13-19) that falls on the new year holidays. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 329,000 tonnes (meal 259,910 tonnes and oil 62,510 tonnes), down 584,600 tonnes or 63.98% from 913,600 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 9.28%, down 16.48% from 25.76% in the previous week. Soybean crush is expected to pick up to 1.6 mln tonnes next week and to 1.95 mln tonnes in week 9.

Soybean crush nationwide is estimated at 4.84 mln tonnes in February at current utilization rate, against the 8.8145 mln tonnes in the previous month and 6.3247 mln tonnes a year earlier.

In the crop year of 2020/21 (from Oct 1st, 2020), China’s soybean crush totals 36,887,944 tonnes, up 4,788,544 tonnes or 14.92% from 32,099,400 tonnes a year earlier.

In the calendar year of 2021 (from Jan. 1st, 2021), China’s soybean crush amounts to 11,397,006 tonnes, up 1,331,249 tonnes or 13.23% from 10,065,757 tonnes of the corresponding period in 2020.

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

Details for weekly crush by region are shown as follows: