Canada Markets

The cumulative producer deliveries of all grains into licensed facilities is seen falling from recent years as of week 9, or the week ending Sept. 30, as seen by the blue bars on the attached chart which is measured against the secondary vertical axis. Despite harvest delays realized in the western Prairies, total deliveries of all grains over this period is down only 1.2% from the same period in 2017/18, when the prairie harvest pace was more advanced.

The brown line represents the trend in AG Transport Coalition data showing cumulative hopper-car demand as of week 9 over recent years, with coalition data reported to cover 90% of the Western Canadian grain shipped. As of week 9, the total demand for hoppers is reported at 70,399 cars, down 6.1% from the same period last crop year, as measured against the primary vertical axis.

Prairie elevator stocks (licensed elevators only) are reported at 3.5144 million metric tons as of week 9, the lowest stocks reported in three years but still 1.5% higher than the five-year average for this week. Stocks across all three provinces are lower than reported for the same week in 2017/18, while grain inventories in Manitoba and Alberta are reported to be below average while grain stocks in Saskatchewan are reported at close to 2 mmt, 15.6% above the five-year average.

Of the 70,399 cars ordered, 96% of this demand has been met by each of the two railways as of week 9. This is the highest percentage reported in the past three years and is slightly higher than the average of the previous three years given combined data for both railroads.

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