Canada’s grain and oilseed stocks up significantly: StatsCan
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(Dave Bedard photo)
CNS Canada — Statistics Canada released its grain and oilseed stocks report for the period ended Dec. 31 on Tuesday, and as many analysts had expected, the report confirmed wheat and canola crops were extremely large.
“It’s confirmation of the large crops that were produced this year,” said Mike Jubinville, president of Pro Farmer Canada. “I think generally speaking, the numbers fell within the range of expectations, so I don’t expect any lasting market influence to come out of this.
“We had a big reminder of the canola and wheat crops,” he added.
StatsCan pegged total all wheat stocks at 28.381 million tonnes as of Dec. 31, 2013 — up from the 20.610 million tonnes seen the previous year.
As for canola, total stocks came in at 12.597 million tonnes, up from 8.109 million a year earlier.
“The canola number was big and it was expected to be big,” said Ken Ball, a broker with PI Financial in Winnipeg. “It probably points to the possibility that the canola crop is a little bigger than last forecast, but nothing major.”
Even if canola usage increases this year, he added, carryout is still going to be extremely large.
“The problem is if you look at last year, we had 8.1 million tonnes in store and we ended up with a carryout of 600,000 tonnes,” Ball said. “That implies the usage of 7.5 million tonnes in the final six or seven months of the season. So presumably we’ll beat that usage rate this year, but even if we raise that to 8.5 million tonnes, we still have four million tonnes leftover. We have a lot of supply to chew through.”
StatsCan also had durum stocks at 5.342 million tonnes, up from 3.931 million last year. Barley came in higher as well, with total stocks pegged at 6.695 million tonnes, compared to 5.265 million seen last year. Oat stocks were pegged at 2.871 million tonnes, up from 2.055 million.
— Brandon Logan writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
Table: A recap of Statistics Canada’s stocks report for the period ended Dec. 31, 2013. Figures in millions of metric tonnes.
Total stocks | Total stocks | |
Dec. 31, 2013 | Dec. 31, 2012 | |
All wheat | 28.381 | 20.610 |
Durum | 5.342 | 3.931 |
Canola | 12.597 | 8.109 |
Barley | 6.695 | 5.265 |
Flaxseed | 0.505 | 0.412 |
Oats | 2.871 | 2.055 |