The Canadian Grain Commission has corrected an error that occurred in Week 19 of its Grain Statistics Weekly report.
Due to a series of licensee reporting errors, the CGC significantly overestimated how much canola was in the domestic disappearance category.
“We certainly apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused,” said CGC spokesperson Remi Gosselin.
One licensee incorrectly reported 238,430 tonnes of canola in the domestic disappearance category. It should have been reported as stocks.
That was the big error but two other companies also mistakenly inflated their domestic disappearance numbers by 76,000 tonnes and 22,260 tonnes. It is unusual to have three errors in one category in one week.
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Domestic disappearance comprises amounts reported by licensed crushers and amounts licensed facilities ship to unlicensed facilities, such as feed mills.
With other minor adjustments, the domestic disappearance category was overstated by 339,100 tonnes.
The error wasn’t fixed until Week 23 because it took a while to discover and investigate the error, plus there was a report scheduling hiccup.
“In this situation it was kind of a perfect storm because it was over the holiday season,” said Gosselin.
He noted that data adjustments in the weekly report are common but one of this magnitude is not normal.
Gosselin said the 339,100 tonnes that erroneously appeared in the domestic disappearance category has been removed and placed into stocks.
That amount may eventually end up in exports or domestic disappearance down the road.
John De Pape, president of Farmers Advanced Risk Management Co., knew something was wrong when he calculated that crushers were running at 109 percent of capacity in Week 19.
“I looked at it and I went, well that’s stupid,” he said.
But it didn’t change the way he viewed the canola market because he has been poring over CGC statistics for years and knows that mistakes happen.
“There are so many times when something has come out in error and they’ve had to revise it that I guess I’m a little jaded,” said De Pape.
He is keeping his eraser handy because there could be other adjustments being made to his canola supply/demand spreadsheet.
De Pape has 250,000 tonnes slotted for his feed, seed and waste category, which is the long-term average. That number may end up being a lot higher.
The Canola Council of Canada estimates two million acres went unharvested last fall. It is unclear what condition that crop will be in come spring.
Some people estimate another three to 10 percent of the canola that did make it into the bin will spoil due to heating or other issues.
That spoiled canola could end up being fed to animals, getting crushed and used to make industrial products like bio-lubricants or simply disposed of in the fields come spring.
