Canada Markets
March Data Confirms China Took Advantage of the Canola Price Break It Was Responsible For
To no one's surprise, the Canadian International Merchandise Trade data for March released by Statistics Canada on Tuesday morning confirmed China had indeed used its own surprising tariff announcement to its advantage. So much so that it dominated the canola seed export market in the weeks to follow.
With shipments totaling 471,757 metric tons (mt) in March compared to 161,645 mt in February, they clearly decided they wanted Canadian canola over oil and meal for some reason. That marked the strongest monthly total since October with it even surpassing the 449,074 mt shipped last March.
As you can see on the accompanying chart, the entire first quarter (of 2025) exports were dominated by China with 1.026 million metric ton (mmt) shipped compared to 479,000 mt exported to Japan as the second-place holder and 251,000 mt sent to Mexico in third place. Given the exceptional pace of exports to date, more of the same should be expected when the April data is released June 5.
USDA finally recognized the strong canola export pace to China in its April World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) update, increasing China's 2024-25 import estimate by 1 million metric ton (mmt) to 4 mmt from 3 mmt (still behind last year's 5.486 mmt). Considering the marketing year shipments from Canada (for August through March) have already totaled 3.713 mmt, even 4 mmt is looking to be too conservative.
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It is worth noting that the exceptional pace to date of Canadian exports also forced USDA to increase their estimate by the same 1 mmt to 8.25 mmt from 7.25 mmt previously. For reference, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) has long been at 7.5 mmt for canola exports even though actual shipments have exceeded that already.
As a quick update, the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) weekly grain statistics report pegged week 38 canola exports at 170,800 mt compared to the prior week's 140,500 mt. Cumulative exports to date hit 7.694 mmt compared to just 4.546 mmt last year. Domestic use was strong again during the week (at 241,200 mt versus 240,400 last week), remaining on a record pace at 8.693 mmt compared to 8.116 mmt last year. Most importantly, on a combined basis, disappearance is running 3.725 mmt ahead of last year while AAFC suggests it can only be .865 mmt ahead on an annual basis to leave ending stocks of just 1.3 mmt.
Getting back to the March export data -- a very intriguing part of the report was the near complete lack of exports to European countries. The only country to take any canola was the Netherlands with 119,059 mt shipped. That took total exports to European Union countries to 474,000 mt in the first quarter of 2025, just behind second place Japan on a combined basis.
Regarding crude canola oil exports to China, March trade data confirmed they had indeed expanded their buying spree ahead of imposing the 100% tariffs (on canola oil and meal) with another 11,002 mt of crude canola oil shipped. That took the three-month export total to 131,205 mt for China compared to just 14,708 mt in 2024, 121,287 mt shipped in all of 2023 and 185,109 mt shipped in 2022.
On a side note, it's worth noting that on Thursday, May 8, Statistics Canada will release their March 31 stocks of principal field crops report. Given the exceptional pace of disappearance to date and the relatively small amount of supplies that are supposed to be left to get through the remainder of the marketing year -- the trade will be watching very closely to see if production is revised higher for previous years as part of the report.
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