ICE Weekly: Soyoil influencing canola prices

Glacier FarmMedia — Statistics Canada will release its first satellite/model-based crop production estimates of the year on Aug. 28. However, one analyst said other factors have affected canola prices over the past week.

David Derwin, a Winnipeg-based commodity futures advisor for Ventum Financial Corp., said canola is experiencing a “quiet, choppy market”. A brief rally early in the week, which pushed the November contract up to C$676.70 on Aug. 25, was all but erased when it reached a weekly low of C$648.10 the next day.

While dry weather conditions, the beginning of harvest and China’s tariff on Canadian canola have all affected prices for the oilseed, Derwin added that canola was largely following Chicago soyoil’s lead.

“It had a big couple of days (early in the week) and then soybean oil has given back some of those gains. Very similar kind of trading activity in canola,” he said. “But (canola) is still hovering around that C$15 per bushel on the November futures contract, so that’s still a good price.”

“But I would say soybean oil has been the big push-pull factor as it relates to canola.”

Derwin also mentioned that soyoil has moved in the opposite direction of other vegetable oils.

“Other global oilseeds like palm oil futures and sunflower oil futures, they’re still pointing higher and floating upwards. Those have a bigger picture influence on canola too … Canola is always a small portion of the bigger picture oilseed market,” Derwin said.

He said the November contract may trade between C$600 and C$700/tonne over the next few weeks.

“C$600 to C$590 to C$580 (per tonne) has been a pretty good level of support going back over the past year-and-a-half to two years,” Derwin added.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in its monthly estimates released on Aug. 20, raised the outlook for 2025-26 canola production by 2.3 million tonnes at 20.1 million.