CNS Canada –– It appears there’s a lot more canola in Prairie fields and bins than anybody thought.
According to Thursday morning’s Stocks of Principal Field Crops report from Statistics Canada, the country had 2.3 million tonnes of canola in its stocks as of July 31 — 500,000 to one million tonnes more than analysts estimated heading toward the report.
StatsCan also raised its estimate for last year’s (as of July 31, 2014) supplies to three million tonnes — 600,000 more than originally thought.
“Wow, that’s huge,” said Wayne Palmer of Agri-Trend Marketing in Winnipeg.
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The numbers, he said, suggest to him that canola exports have been overestimated up to this point, along with the crush numbers.
“Now all of a sudden it doesn’t matter how big our crop is, it’s going to be very difficult to get a rally going here.”
StatsCan’s online production numbers were also adjusted. According to the agency, the 2014-15 crop increased from the previous estimate of 15.6 million tonnes, to 16.4 million tonnes.
Such disparities are going to lead most people to conclude the 2015-16 crop is probably larger than the current estimate, said Mike Jubinville of ProFarmer Canada.
“You’re going to hear people talking about a 15 million-tonne crop,” he said.
Ken Ball of PI Financial in Winnipeg agreed, wondering why the difference didn’t show up on previous stocks reports. It certainly alters the canola situation quite dramatically, he said.
“We go from having to do a fairly significant rationing job to a very minor rationing job,” said Ball.
All-wheat ending stocks were pegged at 7.1 million tonnes, at the high end of trade guesses but still below the 10.4 million tonnes seen the previous year.
Barley stocks, at 1.2 million tonnes, were also at the high end of trade estimates and below the 1.9 million tonnes seen the previous year.
Total pea stocks, as of July 31, were pegged at 429,000 tonnes — 100 tonnes higher compared to the 2014 total.
— Dave Sims 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 July 31, 2015. Figures in millions of metric tonnes.
| Pre-report | Total stocks as | Total stocks | |
| Â | estimates | of July 31, 2015. Â . | at July 31, 2014 |
| All wheat | 5.100 – 7.100. Â . | 7.108 | 10.446 |
| –Durum | 0.800 – 1.200 | 0.982 | 1.779 |
| Canola | 0.800 – 1.700 | 2.322 | 3.008 |
| Barley | 0.650 – 1.200 | 1.217 | 1.950 |
| Flaxseed. Â . | 0.080 – 0.100 | 0.097 | 0.389 |
| Oats | 0.550 – 1.000 | 0.681 | 1.054 |
