WINNIPEG (Reuters) — Canadian stocks of canola dropped to their lowest level in 15 years at midsummer, further than expected, and wheat supplies were the smallest in five years, Statistics Canada said on Friday.
The national statistical agency, using a farmer survey, pegged canola stocks in commercial storage and farms at 608,000 tonnes as of July 31, down 14 percent from a year earlier and well below the average trade expectation of 730,000 tonnes in a Reuters survey.
Statistics Canada’s canola estimate, near the bottom end of a range of trade guesses, is not likely to influence markets much, said Dave Reimann, market analyst for Cargill Ltd.’s grain marketing services division.
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“We are coming off a fairly tight situation, no question about it, but with harvest upon us already, I think the trade is much more focused on that big supply (coming),” he said.
ICE Canada November canola futures were down 0.7 percent after the report.
All-wheat stocks amounted to 5.057 million tonnes, down 14.8 percent, and just below the average trade estimate of 5.13 million tonnes.
Canada is the world’s biggest canola grower and exporter, and the sixth-largest wheat producer.
Statistics Canada also reported year-over-year declines in stocks of barley (to 983,000 tonnes), durum (to 1.15 million tonnes) and oats (to 511,000 tonnes).
“They were down for virtually every crop, just a reflection of how very tight all of these markets were last crop year (due to) drought in the U.S. and problems in the former Soviet Union and other areas,” analyst Jonathon Driedger of FarmLink Marketing Solutions said on a conference call organized by Minneapolis Grain Exchange. “It just created that strong incentive for farmers to deliver grain, commercials to export it.”
