WINNIPEG (Reuters) — Canada stockpiled millions of tonnes more wheat and canola as of midsummer than it had on hand a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported on Friday, but supplies were smaller than expected.
Last year’s record-large harvest and bottlenecks in the transportation system moving crops to buyers led to huge piles of crops in commercial and farm storage as of July 31.
Statistics Canada pegged all-wheat stocks at 9.8 million tonnes, the most in 20 years and nearly double the total on the same date last year. Still, this was far short of the average trade expectation of 10.7 million tonnes.
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Canola supplies reached 2.4 million tonnes, a four-year high and four times the year-earlier total, but below the average trade estimate of three million tonnes.
The report fell “on the low side of expectations, but I don’t know whether there’s anything market moving,” said Bruce Burnett, weather and crop specialist at grain marketer CWB. “There’s no shortage.”
Traders are far more focused on the quality of this year’s harvest, he added.
ICE Canada November canola futures were up 0.2 percent on Friday morning.
Smaller-than-expected stocks suggest that estimates of the size of last year’s harvest were overstated, Brian Voth, senior analyst at Agri-Trend Marketing, said on a conference call held by Minneapolis Grain Exchange.
Most of the additional stocks were on farms, not stored by grain handlers, suggesting that farmers may have waited too long to sell last year’s crop with the next harvest already under way, he said.
Canada is the sixth-largest wheat grower and the biggest producer of canola, a cousin of rapeseed used largely to produce vegetable oil.
Stockpiles of oats at one million tonnes and barley at 1.9 million tonnes were about double the totals a year ago, but also smaller than expected. Durum supplies rose 57 percent to 1.8 million tonnes, in line with expectations.
