By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada

Winnipeg – October 11/12 – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform finished Thursday’s session with advances. Gains in canola were influenced by the tight supply of oilseeds in North America, market watchers said.

Canola values experienced an early price boost from the release of updated supply/demand tables from the USDA. While increasing the size of the US soybean harvest, the US government agency increased demand from the domestic and export sectors, which was seen easily absorbing the jump in production and in turn leave Us soybean stocks extremely tight.

The recent forecast from Statistics Canada leaving Canadian canola production at a much smaller level, also has created concern about the ability of processors and exporters being able to meet commitments, traders said.

Some of the early support in canola also came from the overnight advances seen in Malaysian palm oil and European rapeseed futures.

Some fresh speculative and commodity fund demand weas triggered during the day which contributed to the price strength displayed by canola, traders said.

The relative slow pace of farmer deliveries of canola into the cash pipeline aided the price advances as did the pricing of old export business by commercial accounts.

Buy-stops were activated on the way up, which exaggerated the price gains seen in canola.

The upside potential in canola was tempered by the taking of prodits at the highs of the day. Firmness in the Canadian dollar also restricted the upside price movement.

The rolling of positions from the November future to the January contract continued to be a feature of the activity in canola and helped to augment the volume total.

There were an estimated 23,722 canola contracts traded Thursday, up from the 14,110 contracts that changed hands during the previous session. Of the contracts traded, 15,724 were spread related.