China receives second Australian canola shipment, crushers remain idle

By Ella Cao and Peter Hobson

BEIJING/CANBERRA, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A second cargo carrying 60,000 metric tons of Australian canola arrived in China earlier this month but has not yet been processed, leaving crushers idle for the first time since 2015.

China, the world’s largest canola seed buyer, halted imports from Canada last year amid a diplomatic dispute, tightening supplies.

Around mid-2025, China reopened its doors to Australian canola with state-run agricultural trader COFCO signing deals to ship close to half a million tons.

The first bulk carrier, the Armonia A, arrived in China's southern Guangdong province in late November, and the second, Union Mariner, reached neighbouring Guangxi region in early January, LSEG ship-tracking data showed.

Both are expected to be crushed after clearing customs, but neither has been processed, according to two China-based traders and an analyst. The cause of the delay is unclear, and Chinese customs did not respond to a request for comment.

The halt in Canadian shipments has brought China's vast canola crushing industry to a standstill for the first time since at least 2015, according to data from consultancy MySteel.

Monthly Chinese canola imports fell to zero in October for the first time in two decades, trade data shows, and inventories at crushing plants have fallen to nothing, MySteel said.

AUSTRALIA FILLS CANOLA SUPPLY GAP

Australia is the world's second-largest canola exporter but was shut out of the Chinese market in 2020 under biosecurity rules aimed at preventing the spread of the fungal plant disease blackleg.

As China-Canada relations soured, Canberra and Beijing last year struck a deal allowing Australia to ship trial canola cargoes. By September, COFCO had booked at least nine vessels, or about 540,000 tons.

The delay in crushing the Australian shipments is not yet troubling exporters but is drawing attention because Canadian cargoes usually clear within a week. "If there's no movement by mid-February or March, real alarm bells will start to go off," said an Australia-based source at an international trader.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is in China this week, raising hopes for a deal that would renew Canada's access to the Chinese market.

Canada's Foreign Minister Anita Anand said on Wednesday that talks on the canola issue had been productive, and Chinese rapeseed meal futures CRSMcv1 fell to a nearly three-month low on Thursday.

Beijing is expected to make a final ruling in its anti-dumping investigation on Canadian canola in March.

Zhang Deqiang, analyst at Sublime China Information, said that Chinese canola meal demand is currently in the off-season but is expected to recover from the second quarter. "If Australia can supply around 2-3 million tons this year, that gap could be filled."