Weekly Oilseeds Outlook
Rapeseed opinion
Rapeseed futures continue to find support, although this is becoming harder to maintain as prices approach their 100-day moving average and the €470/t mark.
The market is being buffeted by a series of external forces. Volatility in crude oil markets is one, and the jump in oil prices last week on concerns over Iranian unrest, only for values to recede alongside the country’s internal tensions.
Brent crude, having approached $67/bbl last Wednesday, has returned below $64/bbl, behaviour which has influenced too prices of vegetable oils, used largely to make biodiesel.
Palm oil futures for April-26, having touched 4,161 ringgit a tonne in Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday, retreated back below 4,000 ringgit per tonne, before finding support from Malaysian export data.
In Europe, benchmark German rapeseed oil fell on Monday below $1,100/t for the first time since September.
However, a rally in Canadian canola has been more supportive. Winnipeg canola futures for May-26 are up 7% so far this year, nearly twice as much as their Paris rapeseed peers, lifted by China’s scrapping of a punitive duty on imports of Canadian canola. The discount of Winnipeg canola to Paris rapeseed has shrunk in turn, to around $75/t May-26 basis.
While this reduces the appeal of European imports from Canada, the potential remains for a seasonal upswell in volumes from Australia, a preferred EU origin. There is also talk of Ukraine’s export pace, which halved below 1.4Mt in the first half of 2025/26, recovering thanks to a weakening hryvnia and squeezed domestic crush margins.
The prospect of such supplies, soft rapeseed oil prices and initial forecasts too of a strong EU harvest-26, suggest resistance to further gains in Paris prices, although the extent of geopolitical unpredictability of course offers scope for substantial volatility.
Soybean opinion
Soybean futures have found support around the $10.40/bu mark and three-month lows, March-26 basis.
The market setback from the USDA’s bigger-than-expected 12 January upgrade, of 1.6Mt, in its forecast for domestic soybean stocks at the close of 2025/26 has been offset by other US government news.
The Trump administration was reported last Thursday as planning to finalise US biofuel blending quotas by early March, and keep levels close to initial proposals – a suggestion well-received by the soyoil market. Chicago soyoil futures for March-26 soared 3.9% on the day, lifting spot US crush margins to a four-month high of $1.66/bu.
However, prices of soymeal, which are particularly influential on values of protein-heavy soybeans, have continued to sag under the weight of a better-supplied global meal market.
Pressure from Brazil’s harvest, now some 2% complete, is weighing too. Brazilian soybean export prices touched an eight-month low last week, opening up a discount of $20/t to US Gulf offers, compared with a small premium a month before.
US prices may be particularly sensitive to such competition, given the poor start to the country’s export season thanks to the stand-off with China, until late October’s trade deal. US soybean exports so far in 2025/26 (September to August) are down more than 40% year on year.
The extent of the need for US soybeans to continue to attract demand looks like continuing to overshadow the market, although geopolitical factors will have a say too.
The ratio of soybean to corn prices in Chicago is closely watched at this time for year for evidence of which crop US farmers may prefer in the annual spring “battle for acres”.
