A Statistics Canada crush report Wednesday pegged the December 2023 canola crush at 943,302 tonnes, up 3.8% from November and more than 14% above the December 2022 crush of 826,445. The previous December high for the crush was in 2022 at 904,577 tonnes.
The cumulative August-December crush for the 2023-24 marketing year now stands at 4.57 million tonnes, up 13.9% from the same period a year earlier and 43.5% of Agriculture Canada’s forecasted annual target of 10.5 million tonnes.
Amid rising demand for canola oil from the North American renewable diesel industry and a flurry of new facility and crush expansion announcements since 2021, Canadian canola processing capacity is expected to increase by 60% from the current 11.1 million tonnes by 2025, according to the Canola Council of Canada. Canadian processors produced 4.15 million tonnes of canola oil in 2022-23, an amount that could rise to around 7 million over the next five years if all the intended new processing capacity eventually comes on stream.
In its initial supply-demand estimates for the upcoming 2024-25 marketing year on Monday, Ag Canada held its crush estimate unchanged from the current year at 10.5 million tonnes. However, the government described its estimate as ‘conservative,’ suggesting it may be revised considerably higher, depending on how quickly the planned new Prairie crush plants are brought into operation.
According to StatsCan, the December crush produced 402,183 tonnes of canola oil, up from 386,867 in November and 345,687 in December 2022.
Source : Syngenta.ca