Gleadell grain oilseed trader Willie Wright offers insight into the global oilseed markets, where prices have remained high this week, particularly for oilseed rape.

US soybeans put in a new high on Wednesday and then slid back as the market took a breather after rallying to its highest in almost four years on the back of further crop losses in South America and strong Chinese demand. Oilseeds analyst, Oil World, this week cut its forecast for Argentina's soya output to 42.5mln/t, below its previous estimate for 44mln, down from last year's output of 49.2mln.

Canadian canola contracts on the ICE Futures Canada exchange were much higher this week, with largest gains in the old crop months, tightening supplies and technical buying provided support with some months hitting fresh contract highs. Scats Can reported their planting figures this for Canadian canola that came in at 20.4mln acres, this was higher than last year’s crop at 18.6mln acres but still at the lower end of some analysts range.

Rapeseed continues its upward theme with old crop May matif touching €514 per tonne and August 2012 hitting €495.75 on Wednesday. We briefly saw £400 trade ex-farm in some locations and £380 ex farm in new crop positions. Throughout the week rapeseed has tracked soybeans and the ever- reducing crops figures coming from South America, in particular Argentina. Along with the reductions in soybean production we have seen the European rapeseed crop cut to 18.5mln/t and possibly as low as 18.1mln/t. These reductions in EU rapeseed are being attributed to winterkill more than drought.

Crush margins for rapeseed remain poor with very little forward business being done and crushers are now reporting that rape oil is trading parity or even a discount to soybean oil due to lower demand and higher stocks.

Macro-economic factors have been swinging around again but with less impact this week. European bond auctions were oversubscribed although borrowing costs were slightly higher for a number of countries. We also saw good corporate earnings coming from the US that gave the market a little comfort.