The Canadian canola crush eased slightly in January, the fourth straight month of decline.
A Statistics Canada crush report on Thursday pegged the January canola crush at 1.01 million tonnes, down less than 0.5% from the December crush of 1.014 million. The national crush reached its all-time high in October at 1.101 million tonnes, but has fractionally declined every month since.
However, compared to the same month last year, the January crush was still 7.8% higher, buttressed by expanded domestic processing capacity. The cumulative 2024-25 crush (August-January) now stands at 5.929 million tonnes, up 7.5% from the same period last year.
In its February supply-demand estimates released last week, Agriculture Canada held its 2024-25 full year canola crush forecast steady from a month earlier at 11.5 million tonnes, up from last year’s record high of 11.03 million.
Several companies announced new crush plant projects or expansions back in 2021 and 2022. Although some projects eventually stalled – most recently the Federated Co-operative Limited (FCL) and AGT Food and Ingredients project in Regina that would have crushed 1.1 million tonnes annually – others have gone ahead.
In 2021, Richardson International said it would double the capacity of its Yorkton, SK crush facility to 2.2 million tonnes, a project that is now up and running. Meanwhile, Cargill said back in July that its new canola crush plant in Regina was half complete and expected to be operational sometime later this year.
Louis Dreyfus Company announced in April 2023 that it was expanding its canola processing facility in Yorkton, SK. The project will double the company’s annual crush capacity to over 2 million tonnes, with work still ongoing.
