Operation rates pick up as expected this week (Apr 10-16) owing to more imported soybean stocks put into mills and easing soybean meal inventory pressure. Soybean crush at domestic mills totals 1,617,000 tonnes (meal 1,277,430 tonnes and oil 307,230 tonnes), up 261,800 tonnes or 19.31% from 1,355,200 tonnes last week. Meanwhile, operation rates (capacity utilization) are 45.60%, up 7.38% from 38.22% in the previous week. Soybean crush is expected to increase to 1.70 mln tonnes and 1.77 mln tonnes in the coming two weeks, respectively.

Soybean crush nationwide is estimated at 6.89 mln tonnes in April at current utilization rate, against the 6.8288 mln tonnes in the previous month and 6.7296 mln tonnes a year earlier.

In the crop year of 2020/21 (from Oct 1st, 2020), China’s soybean crush totals 49,119,334 tonnes, up 4,722,234 tonnes or 10.64% from 44,397,100 tonnes a year earlier.

In the calendar year of 2021 (from Jan. 1st, 2021), China’s soybean crush amounts to 23,628,396 tonnes, up 1,264,939 tonnes or 5.66% from 22,363,457 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: