North American Grain/Oilseed Review: Good Prairie weather weighs on canola

The ICE Futures canola market was weaker on Wednesday, seeing a continuation of Tuesday’s slide.

Relatively favourable Prairie crop conditions weighed on values, with the lack of significant production concerns said to be keeping end users on the sidelines or only buying on a scale-down basis.

Manitoba’s canola crop was rated 60 per cent good-to-excellent in the latest report from the provincial government, with 50 to 60 per cent of the crop in the blooming stage of development.

Losses in outside markets, including Chicago soyoil and European rapeseed, put some additional spillover pressure on canola. However, Malaysian palm oil held steady.

About 19,712 canola contracts traded on Wednesday, which compares with Tuesday when 13,019 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 8,920 of the contracts traded.

Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric tonne.

Canola Nov 817.20 dn 21.80
Jan 825.50 dn 21.00
Mar 832.90 dn 20.60
May 838.10 dn 20.90

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were weaker on Wednesday, with relatively favourable Midwestern weather behind some of the selling.

The latest forecasts call for increased chances of rain over the next few weeks with temperatures not quite as high as the models had been predicting earlier.

Chart-based fund selling was a feature, as speculators continued to liquidate long positions.

However, solid export demand on the other side provided some support. The United States Department of Agriculture reported private export sales of 136,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans to China this morning, with more business expected to show up in the days ahead.

CORN was also pressured by the better crop weather, although recent heat likely did some damage to the yield potential.

Tuesday’s move below US$6.00 per bushel was bearish from a technical standpoint, encouraging some additional selling on Wednesday.

Weekly ethanol data showed that refiners in the U.S. were producing 1.034 million barrels of the renewable fuel a day during the past week – up slightly from the previous week, but behind the year ago level.

The excessive heat in Europe is cutting into the crop prospects for corn there, providing some support.

WHEAT traded to both sides of unchanged in choppy activity, settling with small gains in the most-active months.

Wheat traders were trying to get a handle on the export situation out of Ukraine, with talks between Russia and Turkey this week on opening a corridor through the Black Sea showing no real resolution.

Egypt cancelled their latest tender, citing high prices.

Tags: corn, canola, soybean, Production, wheat, soyoil, rapeseed, palm oil, futures, Market, markets