Canada Markets

Durum is gaining focus as we near the end of the crop year and concerns increase about a reduced crop size across southern Europe.

On June 16, pdqinfo.ca bids point to a $4.68/metric ton increase in the southeast Saskatchewan bid to $602.65/mt ($16.40/bushel), the highest price seen since Feb. 3 in pdq data. The western Manitoba bid rose by $4.27/mt to $608.87/mt ($16.57/bu), also the highest seen since Feb. 3. Posted bids draw suspicion at the best of times, even more so when stocks are tight. Even higher bids have been reported by producers this week.

As seen on the attached graphic, weekly producer deliveries into licensed facilities have risen for four consecutive weeks to 59,200 mt in week 45, the largest weekly volume unloaded since week 24, the week ending Jan. 16, or 21 weeks. Commercial stocks have fallen to 476,400 mt, down just 8.8% from one year ago and down 20% from the three-year average.

Based on existing Statistics Canada forecasts for 2021-22, producers have delivered 80.6% of available farm stocks of durum, defined as estimated July 31, 2021 farm stocks plus estimated 2021 production. At the same time, cumulative exports as of week 45 at 2.2542 million metric tons are already close to the AAFC export forecast of 2.3 mmt, with data for seven weeks pending.

Time will tell whether producers will be eager to deliver all of their old crop. The southeast Saskatchewan price spread between spot price and the October price is $12.72/mt, favoring spot delivery, but could keep some grain in the bin as producers look ahead to a potential bullish situation in 2022-23.

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

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