Canada Markets

Export movement may never be enough this crop year given the size of the crop and the number of car requests made by the line companies versus wheat they are receiving, although wheat movement has exceeded past years in the first 16 weeks of this crop year but there is a slowing trend in place.

The first 12 weeks of this crop year starting on Aug. 1 have seen an average of 335,000 mt move on a weekly basis, according to the Grains Statistics Weekly report from the Canadian Grain Commission. The past four weeks, from Week 13 to Week 16, an average of 206,000 mt was exported weekly, which may be a sign of what's to come given concerns surrounding issues both on the West Coast as well as seen in prairie rail movement. Week 16 exports were reported at only 166,740 mt.

With the current export target for wheat (excluding durum) set at 16 mmt by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the attached chart indicates that on nine of the sixteen shipping weeks, movement has exceeded the weekly volume required to meet this target, as shown by the green bars exceeding the blue line which indicates the volume required each week. The last four weeks, however, indicate movement behind the pace (or below the blue line) required to meet the goal.

In total, year-to-date exports reported at 5.15079 mmt are above the steady pace required to meet the annual target, as indicated by the red line or year-to-date volume which is above the black line which represents the steady 307,692 mt required each week to meet the target.

Note that this analysis understates actual exports by the amount of the unlicensed shipments to the United States, which are reported periodically, as well as by flour exports, which are omitted from this study. This would further increase the pace of year-to-date shipments (red line) over and above the volume required. The AAFC forecast includes both exports of wheat and flour in its target for the year.

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

(ES)

© Copyright 2013 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.