Total Canadian canola stocks as of Dec. 31, 2023 may have been a bit tighter than expected, but not enough to change the weak export demand narrative.
A Statistics Canada grain stocks report Thursday pegged nationwide canola stockpiles at the end of last year at 12.851 million tonnes, up 1.3% from 12.681 million a year earlier but still slightly below the average pre-report trade guess of 13 million. If accurate, it is the heaviest Dec. 31 stocks level for canola since December 2020 at 13.304 million tonnes.
The year-over-year increase was due to heavier on-farm stocks, which increased 5.6% to 11.684 million, offsetting a 27.7% decline in commercial stocks to 1.167 million.
Based on the estimated 2023-24 total canola supply of 19.934 million tonnes, the Dec. 31 stocks number implies canola usage of 7.083 million tonnes from the start of the current marketing year on Aug. 1. That is down more than 5% from the 7.468 million tonnes that was consumed during the same period a year earlier.
According to StatsCan, a large global supply of alternative oilseeds, such as soybeans, likely dented demand for canola, resulting in a more than 25% fall in exports to 2.5 million tonnes as of Dec. 31. However, at least some of that decline was blunted by rising domestic use, with the canola crush up 14% to a record 4.6 million tonnes amid growing oil demand from the biofuel sector.
Across the Prairies, Manitoba was the only province where Dec. 31 on-farm canola stocks declined compared to a year earlier, easing 2.5% to 1.89 million tonnes.
On the other hand, on-farm stocks in the largest production province of Saskatchewan were up 6.2% to 6.262 million, the heaviest since December 2019. At 3.445 million tonnes, on-farm canola stocks in Alberta were up 9.5% on the year.
