January canola futures were unchanged Tuesday and deferred months were slightly higher.
Most of the trade was intermonth spreading.
The market was up early on crude oil climbing back above $70 US per barrel and on U.S. exporters reporting more soybean sales to China. However, it fell back at the close.
Winnipeg January canola settled Tuesday at $411.50 per tonne, unchanged from Monday on a volume of 6,419 contracts.
March rose 10 cents to close at $418.80 per tonne on a volume of 10,184 contracts. May rose 60 cents to $426 on 1,138 trades.
The Bank of Canada at noon Tuesday said the Canadian dollar was worth 94.16 cents US, down slightly from 94.4 cents on Monday. The U.S. dollar was worth $1.062 Cdn.
The Winnipeg barley contract was untraded with January at $159 per tonne and March at $161.
Chicago January soybeans were unchanged at $10.55 US per bushel.
Oilseed analyst Oil World notes that although there are still problems with too much rain in parts of Brazil and too little in Argentina, South America will likely produce a much bigger soybean crop than last year’s drought-hit harvest.
If the continent avoids severe weather problems for the rest of the growing season, the harvest that begins in March will bring a new supply of soybeans to the world market, adding downward pressure on oilseed prices.
On the other hand, Oil World expects sunflower and palm oil prices to rise in the new calendar year because of a small 2009-10 sunflower crop and seasonal reductions in palm production.
Oil World believes canola exports will help fill in for the tight sunflower oil situation.