North American Grain and Oilseed Review: Canola slides limit down

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) canola futures were substantially weaker on Tuesday, with the most heavily traded contracts losing the daily limit of C$30 per tonne.

Rain on the parts of the Prairies provided the impetus for the sharp declines in canola, be it precipitation that fell yesterday or what’s in the forecast later this week. There were doubts as to the amount of rain being sufficient enough to stabilize yields.

The Canadian dollar was weaker at mid-afternoon, with the loonie at 80.26 U.S. cents, compared to Monday’s close of 81.02.

There were 19,255 contracts traded on Tuesday, which compares with Monday when 10,343 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 5,732 contracts traded.

Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric tonne.

Price Change

• Canola Nov 771.40 dn 30.00
• Jan 768.10 dn 30.00
• Mar 760.10 dn 30.00
• May 748.90 dn 30.00

Soybean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were weaker on Tuesday, as the forecast for rain on the United States Corn Belt and some parts of the Northern Plains sent prices tumbling.

The release of the weekly crop progress report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was postponed to Tuesday by the Independence Day long weekend.

The USDA also issued its weekly export inspections report and for the week ended July 1 soybean exports came to 206,152 tonnes, for a jump of 86.5 per cent from the previous week. The year-to-date soybean inspections reached 57.45 million tonnes, for a 53.7 per cent increase compared to those a year ago.

The department’s attaché office in Brazil pegged that country’s 2020/21 soybean crop at 137 million tonnes and called for next year’s crop to hit a record 143.5 million tonnes.

Corn futures took a hard hit on Tuesday, with reports that the September contract crashed to the daily limit of 40 cents per bushel within 10 minutes after the opening.

The USDA reported corn export inspections of nearly 1.24 million tonnes, up 19.6 per cent from the previous week. As the 2020/21 marketing year winds down, year-to-date corn exports reached 58.15 million tonnes, which is 69.1 per cent ahead of last year.

AgRural cut its estimate of Brazil’s 2020/21 corn crop to 85.3 million as some private consultancies lower their projections to under 90 million tonnes. The severe drought and now frost have inflicted great damage to the country’s safrinha corn crop, which was planted late in the season.

Wheat futures were weaker on Tuesday, in sympathy with corn and soybeans.

The USDA reported wheat export shipments of 258,438 tonnes, down 10.4 per cent from a week ago. At this point in the 2021/22 wheat marketing year, total shipments of 1.79 million tonnes were down 25.8 per cent from the same point in 2020/21.

Market expectations put the U.S. winter wheat harvest at 40 to 45 per cent complete, up from 33 per cent a week ago.

In international sales, Egypt bought 240,000 tonnes of wheat from Russia and Romania, while Thailand issued a tender for 231,000 tonnes of feed wheat. Also, Jordan put out a call for 120,000 tonnes of milling wheat and Japan placed a request for 108,000 tonnes of wheat.

The Western Producer

Tags: corn, canola, soybean, wheat, North American, Grain and Oilseed Review