Canada Markets

A comment was made at the recent Grainworld conference that Agriculture Canada's forecast for durum exports, expected to reach 4.15 million metric tonnes this crop year, was perhaps a lofty target. The attached chart is a graphical view of the year-to-date industry performance.

When looking at the weekly exports as indicated by the Grain Statistics Weekly, 17 out of 30 weeks have seen weekly exports (green bars) exceed the weekly volume required to meet the annual projection (blue line). Recent volumes are lower due to the freeze-up of the eastern seaway, as expected.

The upward sloping black line represents the cumulative volume required to meet the annual target of 4.15 mmt. This would indicate a constant pace of exports throughout the crop year. In this case, this would reflect the 4.15 mmt target divided by 52 weeks of shipping, or a constant volume of 79,808 metric tonnes weekly. Note that this line is measured against the cumulative tonnage on the right hand y-axis.

The red line, also measured against the right hand y-axis, indicates the year-to-date cumulative exports. At 2.554 mmt as of week 30 (actual volume as shown by the red line), this volume is 6.7% higher than the 2.394 mmt indicated by the week 30 cumulative volume required (black line).

Since 1996, exports have exceeded 4 mmt only four times. This occurred in 1996/97, 1997/98, 2005/06 and 2006/07. The highest movement took place in 2006/07, where 4.432 mmt were exported. Week 30 data for that crop year indicated YTD exports at 2.639 mmt, or just 85,000 mt higher than the current year. The average export volume over the remaining 22 weeks of the crop year in 2006/07 was 71,877 mt, which is well below the 79,808 mt cumulative volume needed this crop year needed to meet projections.

We will update this measure of performance over time to evaluate the performance of the grain handling system, and also the accuracy of the export forecast. It would appear that durum exports have a chance to meet or exceed the current forecast given YTD trends.

Cliff Jamieson can be reached at cliff.jamieson@telventdtn.com

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