The Canadian canola crush set a new all-time high in October.
A Statistics Canada crush report on Wednesday showed 1.1 million tonnes of canola was crushed by domestic processors last month, topping the previous high of 1.005 million achieved just four months earlier in July. The October crush was also up 18% from September and 13% above the same month last year.
Three months into the 2024-25 marketing year, the cumulative August-October crush now stands at 2.88 million tonnes, a 5.8% increase from the same period last year.
In its November 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. However, the government once again cautioned that its forecast is sensitive to the speed at which crush plants under construction become operational.
Amid increasing North American demand for renewable diesel, canola crush capacity in Canada is set to grow from the current approximately 11.2 million tonnes annually to just over 17 million over the next five years.
According to StatsCan, the October crush yielded 459,220 tonnes of canola oil, up from 394.851 in September and 411.664 in October 2023.
