After slowing for the second straight month in February, the Canadian canola crush rebounded in March.
A Statistics Canada report Friday showed the March crush at 961,355 tonnes, up about 7% from the previous month and 2.6% above January. The March crush was also more than 4% above last year and marked the second highest of the 2023-24 marketing year, trailing only the October 2023 crush of 974,376.
The cumulative August-March crush of 7.37 million tonnes was almost 750,000 tonnes or about 11% ahead of the same period the previous marketing year.
With four months left in the 2023-24 marketing year, the crush at the end of March stood at 70.2% of Agriculture Canada’s full year forecast of 10.5 million tonnes.
The domestic crush remains a good news story for the canola market, especially as 2023-24 exports are running approximately one-third behind the year-ago pace. In its March world supply-demand outlook, the USDA raised its estimate of Canada’s 2023-24 canola crush to 10.7 million tonnes, “driven by strong demand for canola oil.”
Rising renewable diesel production in both Canada and the US is increasing demand for canola oil. Canola crush capacity in Canada alone is set to grow from the current 11.2 million tonnes annually to just over 17 million over the next five years.
According to StatsCan, the March crush produced 410,916 tonnes of canola oil, up from 382,013 in February and 384,817 in March 2023.
