Winnipeg, MB, Dec. 4, 2014

ICE Futures Canada canola contracts traded to both sides of unchanged on Thursday in choppy activity, but managed to settle with small gains overall as spillover from the advances in CBOT soybeans countered a relatively bearish Statistics Canada production report.

StatsCan pegged this year's canola crop at 15.55 million tonnes, which beat average trade estimates and was nearly 1.5 million tonnes above the previous estimate.

However, while the headline number was bearish, the crop is still well below last year's record production and solid end user demand continued to provide support, according to participants.

In addition to the good exporter and domestic crusher buying interest, a lack of farmer selling, oversold price sentiment, a weaker Canadian dollar, and gains in CBOT soybeans were also supportive for canola.

About 38,015 canola contracts were traded on Thursday, which compares with Wednesday when 20,334 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 24,392 of the contracts traded.

Milling wheat, durum, and barley were all untraded.

Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.

                          Price      Change
Canola            Jan     412.70    up 0.40
                  Mar     410.90    up 0.60
                  May     412.70    up 1.20
Milling Wheat     Mar     239.00    unch
                  May     242.00    unch
Durum             Mar     357.50    unch
                  May     357.50    unch
Barley            Mar     175.00    unch
                  May     177.00    unch
     Spread trade prices are in Canadian dollars and the volume
represents the number of spreads:
Months        Prices                      Volume
Canola
Jan/Mar       1.10 over to 3.00 over        5757
Jan/May       1.00 under to 1.30 over       1641
Jan/Jul       2.10 under to 0.50 over        641
Mar/May       2.20 under to 1.00 under      1781
Mar/Jul       3.30 under to 3.00 under        17
Mar/Nov       1.80 under                      81
May/Jul       1.70 under to 0.80 under      1708
May/Nov       0.80 over                       26
Jul/Nov       1.90 over to 3.60 over         504
Nov/Jan       5.60 under                      40

Commodity News Service