The Canadian canola crush continued to trend below the year-earlier level in October.
According to a Statistics Canada report Thursday, national oilseed processors crushed 876,127 tonnes of canola in October, almost 6% below the same month the previous year. It continued a downward trend that began in August, when the crush plunged more than 20% to just 661,968 tonnes – the lowest monthly crush since February 2019. The decline in the September 2021 crush was more modest, down less than 1% from September 2020.
Canadian crush levels have more recently been impacted by tight domestic supplies, with this year’s national canola crop down by about one-third to an estimated 12.78 million tonnes due to severe drought on the Prairies this past summer.
In its latest monthly supply-demand updates, released late last week, Agriculture Canada reduced its 2021-22 canola export forecast by 1 million tonnes from October to 5.5 million and increased its crush estimate by an identical amount to 8.5 million. Even so, the crush for the current marketing year is still estimated down almost 2 million tonnes or more than 18% from 2020-21.
“Domestic crush is forecast to decline from last year’s record of 10.4 million tonnes to 8.5 million as supplies are rationed among users,” Ag Canada said in its accompanying commentary.
Ag Canada also raised its 2021-22 season average price forecast for canola by $40 from last month to $1,000/tonne, way above $730 in 2020-21 and $484 in 2019-20.
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