By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada

Winnipeg – September 10/12 – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform ended Monday’s session on the defensive with the declines posted by CBOT soybean values behind some of the downward price action, market watchers said.

The liquidation of positions ahead of Wednesday’s supply/demand reports scheduled to be released by the USDA, also contributed to some of the price declines in canola.

Favourable weather conditions which was allowing for the quick harvest of the canola crop in Alberta and Saskatchewan and the resulting pick up in farmer deliveries into the cash pipeline, helped to weigh on values, brokers said.

The continued upward surge in the value of the Canadian dollar Monday was also viewed as an undermining price influence on canola futures, traders said.

The losses in canola were tempered by scale down commercial demand, said to be the pricing of old export business. Domestic processors were aslso scale down buyers of canola, which further slowed the downward slide in values, brokers said.

Underlying support in canola also continued to come from reports that canola yields were coming in below expectations.

There were an estimated 8,294 canola contracts traded Monday, down from the 13,064 contracts that changed hands during the previous session.

There were 8 milling wheat contracts traded at lower levels with commercials the main participants, brokers said.

Durum contracts were untraded and unchanged.

The December barley future saw 10 contracts exchange hands during the day at lower price levels.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.