ICE canola rises on rapeseed strength

CHICAGO: ICE Canada canola futures closed higher on Wednesday, supported by a rally in the rapeseed oil market and heavy fund buying, traders said.

* Traders estimated that commodity funds bought a net 2,000 July canola contracts.

* July settled up $8.60 at $592.10 per tonne on volume of 11,388 contracts.

* New-crop November ended up $7.10 at $594.00 on volume of 11,132 contracts.

* Total daily volume of 23,942 contracts was the highest since April 26.

* The July/November spread traded 4,462 times at $0.80 to $3.80, premium November.

* The Canadian dollar was flat against the US currency on Thursday, trading at $C$0.9780 to the US dollar or $1.0225, unchanged from Wednesday's North American session close.

* Farmers pace of planting of this year's canola crop has picked up in the past few days but more rain was in the forecast for next week so the growers would have to rush to complete their seeding tasks, a trader said.

* Dry conditions that were damaging the European rapeseed crop keyed the gains in that market.

* MATIF November rapeseed settled up 5.75 euros at 480.75 per tonne.

Copyright Reuters, 2011