[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, folks, Brett Waltz with BAM Weather is going to join us this week. We're going to talk about super El Nino and what type of impact that could have on our growing season. Will the spring ever show up for the Canadian prairies? We're going to talk about all things weather. We also have Lorelei Grass with Fuel Nexus. We're going to talk about diesel prices. If you are looking at diesel purchases, this episode is for you. Episode 118 coming at you right now.
Hey folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, folks, welcome into episode 118 of the what the Futures podcast. Recorded each and every week in the UPL studio. Of course, UPL launching a new fungicide this year, Teleron, a great new fungicide designed to help prairie farmers protect their crops. Cereals, Canola.
It's kind of a jack of all trades for you. But give your retail a call and they will get you those details or your UPL rep, which you can find those details on the, on the what the Futures podcast website as well. You can find your rep right on our website.
Of course, UPL a sponsor of the SJHL playoffs. And can you believe it folks, we have two game sevens tonight. By the time you listen to this, we will know was it Flim Flawn or Wayburn who pulled it off in game seven? Was it Yorkton or the Battlefords? We'll find out. But two game sevens on the agenda here for tonight. I think they're both. Yeah. Wednesday, April 15, two games coming at you. All right folks, great episode. Coming up, Brett Walts with BAM Weather. Of course, he is our, our resident meteorologist.
Done a great job for us the last number of years. Brett joined me, we did a bit of a detailed video. The lunchbox crew guys, they get a, a specific update, regular update through the growing season. So after that we, we got chatting and, and did record a segment for, for what? The future's here this week. Lots going on weather wise, as per usual in April. And my big question is when is it going to, when is spring going to show up here? So we dive into that. I also have Lorelei Grass with Fuel Nexus. It's very interesting. It's a little bit of a game changer here from a fuel buying perspective. A fuel buying offer, it's, it's different and I want to shed some light on this because I have been able to back test this. I've been able to watch farmers buy fuel for the last about a year now and see their experiences with fuel nexus. And it's been, it's been great in some situations.
The fuel that has been bought for this spring is half the price of what it is today. So Lorelei's got some great perspectives of the diesel fuel market and we're going to talk a little bit about fuel nexus and what they have going on. Also, there's that federal fuel, what do they call that, some federal fuel tax temporarily suspended here from looks like what, April 20th to September. We're going to talk about that as well. All right, so two great guests for you here in episode 118.
Last thing, these hats. This is last year's winner, right? These hats are, are an initiative between what the Futures and uplift in partnership with the Canadian center for Agricultural well Being.
That is the, a great organization doing some phenomenal work in the mental health area here. Of course, farmers not immune. And in fact, the stats show more impact on farmers when it comes to mental health pressures. And I don't know if concerns is the right word to put in there, but these hats, we did another design contest. We have somewhere between 25 and 30 entries that have come in. And so get your, get your entry in. I am taking a week off here, so you have a little bonus time to get your hat designs in. You can get those printed off at Ryandeni Ca, but we are looking to, to start voting on these next week. You're going to see the votes going to come out here next week because we have to. We got a design these things. We got to get them into production. We have a timeline that we need to follow. That's what Yvonne's telling me. Anyway, you got to keep moving this along. All right. Okay. Positive moments for this week. I got up to Two Hills, Alberta on what was that Tuesday afternoon. You know, it's always fun when you get a crowd that is is engaged in your talk. So they put me down for 45 minutes. I, I stretched it out, I think to an hour. Took a little bonus time there. But it's always nice to, to get in front of a group that isn't scared to hold back, ask questions or, or even have comments or call me out on something I've said on the show. You know, as you, as you put together, you know, 118 episodes now for me, plus some bonus content in there. And still those elf videos from the first Christmas of doing this live and linger online.
So you put this content out, you say a bunch of stuff and you hope it sticks. You hope you say some good things. You hope that the advice is is or the perspective is, is great and, and useful. But Clint did call me out and he said, Ryan, you know, on your show, because of course I was trying to pat myself on the back saying I've had some great fertilizer guests on and we've been promoting, you know, to buy the stuff. He said, in December you were telling us to wait and I see, you know what, Clinton, I do recall that episode. And I said, but I'm pretty sure the next one. I, I said hey, you know, futures could trend lower but yet price will still climb based on the time of the year. We're getting into crunch time, you know, later winter logistics matter. Price is going to climb. You should secure that. So you know, Clinton called me out on it. We had a little bit of a back and forth, friendly little banter in front of the crowd and it's always appreciated when, when you can do that. I did advise Clint, he said, buddy, if you just want to take that next step, you know the Lunchbox crew, check that out. Ryan, Denis, ca because if you want a little more, a little extra every week, that would be the spot to do it. So there's a little bit of jab back at you, Clint. So no, it was great. Good time in two hills. And yeah, we're at our place. We're you know, in getting ready for vacation mode. We are going to jump on an airplane next week. The kids are just, just vibrating, finished. So excited to go on, on the airplane and so looking forward to that and getting away because I will be gone for the next couple weeks. I have pre recorded material for you. All right, you're going to get the presentation. I did this presentation four times and so you're going to get my version of a like a shortened market outlook. I can't put in the funny videos and the clips that we use when I'm doing this live because the YouTube does not appreciate when you use other folks content. So it'll be a little drier than when I'm standing up there doing my song and dance. But I wanted to just, you know, give a little perspective. If I could call it an outlook. I guess that's what we'll call it. But I'm going to put that together for you. That'll be one week of. Of what? The futures. And then I also have a conversation coming up with another podcast.
Not podcast guy, Prairie podcast guy. And we're going to record something so you'll see that as well in the next couple weeks. So that's kind of the pre recorded stuff. And then Brian Como with ICL Ireland, Como Lafoy. He's going to take over a cup of coffee for the next two Tuesdays. I, I begged him so please invite me as a guest on your show, Brian. But he's going to take over a cup of coffee for me for the next couple Tuesdays and he does a great job. He puts out a video every single workday and so this is just kind of old hat for him. He'll be fantastic.
But you can look forward to seeing Brian on the what the Futures Channel next week. First time I think first time that we have a guest host of some sort. Again, fingers crossed that he invites me as a guest at least for one of those Tuesdays. But we'll see. All right folks, from a crop marketing perspective, a little bit of life, a little bit of excitement in our wheat markets. The Kansas crop, the, in Kansas, the state of Kansas, the western side of that growing area just continues to miss the rain. And so you've had very, a very strong week as of recording in Casey wheat and Minneapolis wheat kind of following along as well. We're trading, you know, if we want to go to the September contract, we're trading 651 as of recording and that did get, you know, a few weeks back that got as high as 675. We'll see where we go here. We'll see if we find resistance, you know, in the 660 level or what that looks like. But a nice recovery from 612 up to 650, a nice 40 cent gain. The CPS growers out there, they're having a better week. In fact I saw some old crop, $8cps trigger here in central Alberta. So that's getting back to some of those higher values that we did see. Spring wheat also catching a little bit of momentum here. Gaining back about, let's call it 25 cents, almost 30 cents a bushel off the lows. September trading at 6:70 was as high as 6:90 just a few weeks ago. So like sometimes you sit there and you look for opportunity. What can I do? What can I market? What can I focus, you know, on my plan?
And there's times where it's just like canola, canola, canola, canola. There's times where it's just lentils, lentils, lentils, lentils, barley, barley, barley, barley. And then now it's wheat taking its turn. I do have a watch out for barley growers out there. I would be making sure that I got enough Sales on and feel good about that. And maybe you need Brett's weather update to feel confident about selling more barley. But yeah, barley looks a little susceptible to additional pullback for me. And then also canola is the other one that's just kind of lulling. Lulling us to sleep here. It's just a very calm, cool, collected market not doing much of anything. November Canola Trading earn 720 as of recording. That's off the highs of, you know, call it 7:30, 7, 7:40. We found support at 700 when we did dip there a few weeks back. So in fact, you could probably draw a little bit of support here. That 7, 710 level, 715.
But that chart to me looks. It looks like it's turning over.
And I know a lot of my conversations this week with farmers was just about snugging up those canola hedges, making sure that we are taking advantage. We started this rally at Christmas of last year in the 620 range. We're 100 bucks a tonne better than that. And so making sure that we take advantage and feel good about our sold position here if this thing does decide to go and revisit 670 for some awful reason. Right. So anyways, this is the week for wheat. Let's turn it over. Let's talk weather with Brett and then I'll come back at you with with a couple things and then we'll get into our fuel discussion with Laura Lee.
Alrighty, folks, we have Brett Waltz from BAM Weather joining the show once again. Brett, welcome back. It's been a minute.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: It has been a minute. It has been a long winter. I'm excited to be back though, dude.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Winter continues as of recording. I shouldn't complain a couple inches of snow outside of my house. But I know at the farm, I guess north of the farm had a foot like 12 inches of snow, something like that. The guys in the north are. They're cursing this week. So the winter continues.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been a long winter up there. Hey, it was. It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit down at my house last week, so bit different.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: So the last time we chatted was actually through the Clarity app. It's not often, Brett, where you're responding.
So I don't know if I pulled like a golden ticket or something, but I was asking you about the Kansas drought conditions and are they going to get worse or better? This was a couple of weeks ago and so you gave me a little bit of insight there. But where are we at today on the western side of this winter wheat growing area. Is this a continued dryness? It's mid April.
Is it going to continue for those folks?
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah, there has not really been any kind of improvement over the past several weeks in that region, but I do see some hope down the road. It's not going to solve all of the problems all at once, but I do see a pattern change as we head into the end of April. So maybe 10 days from now or so in beyond that, and as we head into May, they should start to get some more rains. That will be the case in a pretty widespread fashion for that part of the country and down through the southeastern United States. And that's related to what will be a developing El Nino pattern as we head further and further into the rest of spring and summer.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: So speaking of the El Nino, like, is everything have to have super in front of it now? There's super cycle for commodities. Super El Nino.
There was something else that had super in front of it today. I forgot to write it down before, before recording this afternoon. But like, what makes it super? Like, why are we super?
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, now that you say that, I've got another one. Super typhoon. There was a super typhoon.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: There you go. Perfect.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: The West Pacific, I think one of the earliest ones on record out there.
You know, I think that the term super El Nino has been around for a while, 30 or 40 years probably, but we don't hear about it very much because it doesn't happen very often. And I think there's only been one in the social media era. And so that probably is playing a role as well. And why it sounds so much worse. It's really just we ran out of ways to, or adjectives to describe the strength of El Nino once you got past the strong level.
Super El Nino is indicating sea surface temperatures along the equator that are 2 degrees Celsius, Celsius or more above normal. And I believe that there's only been three or four of those in recorded history, and the last one being 2015, 2016. And so it's rare to get this. We're not there yet. It hasn't officially been achieved. We have a long way to go, but looks like a high probability that we'll either have a strong El Nino or we will get to that Super El Nino territory later this summer or this fall.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Okay. And like, is it just me when I hear Super El Nino that like, negativity creeps in towards how this, how the impact's going to be on, on growing a crop? Like maybe that's Just a me thing. Does this have a negative impact towards, you know, the Corn Belt and, and growing that big crop in 2026, or am I way out to lunch?
[00:15:39] Speaker B: I think that just because it sounds menacing that you would think that it's a negative connotation. And in some parts of the, it definitely creates some issues in other parts of the world. But for the United States, it actually increases our moisture supply and same thing in Canada as well.
And it typically leads to better crops. Now, I'm not saying that this year we're looking at a record crop. 2023 was a strong El Nino. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't terrible either. 2015 was pretty good.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: Overall.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: That was the last super el Nino. And 1997 was as well. And so there's not any concrete research that would indicate that the Super El Nino is a bad thing for growing conditions for the upcoming season.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: So the negative impact could be that Southern Hemisphere, is that what you're talking about? Like maybe Australia or Brazil, Is that where it kind of can have a negative impact?
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, Australia, because you put all the warm ocean waters out towards South America and the US they can have some dryness concerns. The other issue that you often have in strong El Nino years, a lot of typhoons so very busy in China and Japan from a typhoon perspective and in some cases Mexico as well. In the eastern Pacific and islands out there, you tend to get very active hurricane and typhoon seasons. But east of that, again, not so bad for the U.S. most of the time from a crop perspective. And it actually tends to favor a less active hurricane season in the Atlantic as well.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Well, switching gears now back to the, to the Canadian prairies. We've got extremes out there at this moment. We've got all that snow in the north. We've got dryness, drought type concerns in the southern parts, especially southwest Saskatchewan, southeast Alberta. Do we have a number one, do we have a warmup coming? And let's start with that. Is there a legitimate warmup coming? Is spring arriving?
And then also layer in moisture expectations during plants and we don't like, typically we don't like being bothered. We want to just go out there and plant.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Are there going to be delays in planting this year?
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Fantastic questions on both points. And you should see a change coming. I don't think we're necessarily completely done with colder shots of air, especially the further east that you go, but a more consistently mild pattern seasonable to warmer than normal, especially across this Saskatchewan and Alberta as we head into the end of April and into May is coming in my opinion. And with that type of warmer pattern west and more seasonable to cooler pattern east type of setup, it tends to support less active patterns. Maybe not one that's completely void of moisture, but one, in my opinion, that should be favorable to get out into the fields and start planting at a decent pace this year.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Sounds good. That makes me feel a little bit better and. Oh, just one second, Brett. I've just, I've got a message coming in here. My. Yeah, it's my wife. She wants to know, yeah, we're camping the week of weekend of May 22nd. Should we keep that camping reservation or not? Is it going to warm up enough for us to enjoy ourselves camping here in five weeks?
[00:19:03] Speaker B: I think so, yeah. I think you'll be okay. You are pretty far north, so you never know. Your level of tolerance for chillier temperatures is probably different than mine down here in southern Indiana, but I would keep it. I think you're going to be okay by then from a temperature standpoint.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: All right, and I got one more for you.
I'm assuming in the Clarity app you have the chat function.
I'm assuming you start to pick up on some trends out there and I'm just curious like what's coming across the chat? Like is it folks that are, that are looking out their window saying, oh man, it's kind of go time. I'd like to be out there planting, you know, what's this look like in the next few weeks or. Or is there a different theme coming through in the chat?
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that question. Somebody that's always looking at long range trends. I love to look at the trends that I see in the type of questions we get in the Clarity platform. And we've got a pretty good divide west to east right now in the US of the types of questions we're getting further to the south and east, it's trying to find dry windows, trying to determine if there's going to be pop up storm chances. We have a lot of messy rain right now in the Midwest, the Ohio Valley, so trying to determine whether their field work is going to be impacted, you know, fertilizing, things like that really just trying to nail down precipitation chances and dry windows. Further to the west, we're getting more extended range questions. I think the one that you sent in a couple of weeks ago about the winter wheat area, trying to figure out are we going to get some moisture as folks look to get out into the fields and start planting.
We're going to get any moisture into the ground as that starts. And so they're dealing with really in a lot of cases, severe drought conditions.
And so that's the question in the western half of the belt, if you will, that we're getting a bit right now.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: All right, all right, fair enough. Appreciate that. Appreciate that context. As a crop marketer, I'm always looking at, you know, extremes, like extremes that can impact crop prices.
Sometimes the extreme is too much moisture, delay in planting that could have a positive influence to price.
Sometimes it's a dryness or excessive heat event that, that lends itself to, to price or higher price. From our conversations, I'm not really picking out with the exception of the dryness in that western winter wheat belt that's happening now and some maybe in the prairies, a little bit of dryness concern, some small pockets here into early June. Like outside of that though, is there anything that I'm missing from an extremes point perspective?
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I, I really think that right now I don't see anything overly extreme about the pattern ahead. I do suspect, and maybe something to keep in mind from a pricing standpoint, that some of those areas that have been skipped out on the rains east and won't get the rains that are coming west as we head into May probably can stay a little bit drier. Maybe some of the soil moisture concerns are still there. There's a lot of corn in eastern Nebraska, south Dak, western Iowa, where it's still dry in some spots and it's not going to be all that wet as we start out the season. So I just wouldn't be shocked if there's some concern heading into the start of the season in there, but we expected that to happen and we expect there to be timely rains down the road. And so it may be similar to 2023, where there's some brief panic, if you will, some brief concern with some of the dryness, but it alleviates as the season goes on.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: All right, perfect. How could people, if they want to learn a bit more about BAM weather, what's the best way for them to, to. To get a hold of you guys or to catch some of your content?
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, number one, follow us on social media, on Twitter, on or X as we call it on Facebook, BAM weather. You can just search for us and you'll find it and then head over to our
[email protected] do have a trial as well for AG with the clarity platform. And so you can learn more about that on on our website or go to to claritywx.com sign up just to sign up.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Sounds great, man. Well, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you spending the extra time with me today. We did do a video for the Lunchbox crew. Kind of dived into it in more detail. So I do appreciate, appreciate that as well.
And yeah, look forward to getting you on, you know, in the next maybe month or so. Sure. Just to check in one more time, see how things are going this spring. Yeah. Appreciate all the work you do, of course.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Thanks so much for having me. You have a fantastic day.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: You too.
Well, folks, when I listen to that forecast from Brett Walt, you know there is going to be, there always is some, some stress points out there, some pressure points where the weather is just not cooperating. That's you're talking about such a big area within that there's going to be great and not so great. But as a whole, to me, this forecast is we'll see. I don't know from if we want to look at weather impacting crop prices, I'm sure we'll get our moments. We'll see maybe less than years past less rally silly season we call it. Maybe less of that the way this is setting up again. Time will tell, folks. I did have a cup of coffee this week. I did have Quintin with JGL Capital. Join me for a cup of coffee. You can go and check that out from, from Tuesday on, on the YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcast. Certainly appreciate those of you, well that are tuning in but also hit that subscribe button for me. A lot of questions coming in around what do we do here? What percent hedged should we be? What strategy could we consider? Should we look at reowning some of our, our bushels here if there's a pullback in the markets? That's kind of like the theme that came out of cup of Coffee this week. And I did get an email as well. And you know, I think the important thing that I want to just kind of reference here or acknowledge is, is that every farm has their own kind of comfort level and is dealing with their own conditions. And you know, to sit here and say, hey, I'm 20%, 40%, 60% sold or hedged on, on new crop, whatever it is, canola, wheat, everyone has a different comfort level. And so I think for me the important, you know, important thing is just to, to know that, you know, the advice out there is, is different depending on where you're at and what's going on around you. From a percent sold perspective. The, the idea of being a certain percent committed at the same time every year like that. That's pretty normal. It does change a little bit year to year. There. There are tweaks that happen. Sometimes you think you're making the right call, the right tweak to sell a bit more, sell a bit less, and then it. It turns out and kind of bites you a little bit. So you try to stay as true to it as. As you can. But, you know, everyone's. Every farm's different. Everybody's strategies are. Are slightly different. The goals are the same. Right. We want to make the most money we can. Those are pretty consistent goals out there. But how we get there is kind of different for. For everybody. So I just wanted to highlight that. And of course, you know, hedge account having that ability. Very, very useful tool here, especially with these markets, if they do want to go and pull back on us. So, anyways, that was a cup of coffee here earlier this week.
Welcome, Laura Lee. Laura Lee. Hey, Grass. Welcome to the what the Futures podcast. Making your podcast debut. How's your week going?
[00:27:12] Speaker C: Good, good. It's a busy, busy time in the world I live in right now, but
[00:27:16] Speaker A: happy to be here, I bet. Like, what part of. You're in Alberta, right?
[00:27:22] Speaker C: Yeah, in Airdrie.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Airdrie. Okay. There we go. All right. So did. Did you have. Do you have snow outside your door today? Like. I do or.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: No, not today, but yesterday. And it's. It's in the forecast for tomorrow, so.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: All right, so winter continues in Airdrie as well. Perfect.
[00:27:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Countdown to spring.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: So you're making your show debut. I promised the listeners, like, weeks ago. I said we're gonna get. We're gonna find some fuel, some diesel insight here. We're gonna try to find people that can come and help us navigate this market, this. This energy market, this diesel fuel market in Western Canada.
It's. It's a. It's a pet peeve of mine because in one sense, I'm fortunate where I get a lot of information from a lot of areas about price, but I also see a huge discrepancy in. In what's being offered. And so I'm excited to have you on the show just to help us work through some of that.
And I want to kick off today's conversation, a timely conversation. The federal government announced something this week, something about a fuel tax. I don't know if it was a reduction or what it was, but. Laura Lee, do you want to just walk us through what came out this week and the impact.
[00:28:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Yesterday The Prime Minister announced that they were going to suspend the federal excise fuel tax. So what that typically looks like is about 10 cents for gasoline and 4 cents for diesel at the pump.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: The suspension starts though on Monday, so it hasn't started yet. And it goes to September 7th. So I kind of mark your calendar, get your fuel before the 8th.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: So April, April 20th, it's going to kick off.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: And then as we are in the glut of harvest, likely it will come come back on, I guess.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So companies like ours that have bulk fuel providers, that'll be who you want to call before September 7th, before we
[00:29:30] Speaker A: get too far down the path.
Fuel Nexus, right? That is the name of your organization?
[00:29:37] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, I represent Fuel Nexus. Yeah.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: How can people, where can they find some information? If they're listening to our conversation today and they're like I need to know more about this company, where would you direct them to?
[00:29:49] Speaker C: The most timely updates people are going to see with our company are probably LinkedIn for fuel Nexus and LinkedIn just Google us or search us on there. We do have Facebook and Instagram, they're just not as timely updates. And then we do have the Fuel Nexus CA website or you can always give me a call and I'll update you on anything you need to know.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Perfect, Sounds good.
So what's your role within Fuel Nexus? Like what do you spend your day working on?
[00:30:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a good question.
Because we have so much growth, I feel like we all wear a few hats.
My title would be senior account manager. So I deal with a lot of accounts and that goes from anything for a daily delivery. A guy just wants a price quote on hey, what's feel doing Or I'll sit down and work with with a farming operation and go through their entire yield of fuel needs and what that'll look like and how to maximize and plan ahead with them. Also we offer car lock services. So there's some trucking companies and things like that that I'll help manage and figure out future stuff with them. Walking companies right through from setting up. Some farmers want to get into the bulk fuel side of things, but they don't even know where to start. So we'll sit down and talk about tanks and containment or whatever they might need depending where they are.
And then I guess the other side of things would be would be some marketing with the company growing and a lot of ideas.
My old role was based in some marketing stuff and so bringing some of that experience from still the ag industry but bringing that into this role and doing some marketing for the business as well.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Awesome. And so you've been involved in agriculture for quite some time now.
What are you kind of learning or what? What's kind of a pleasant surprise as you've dabbled into this side of agriculture, into the fuel space? Like, anything surprise you?
[00:31:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say so. I mean, my experience has been about over 18 years in agriculture, but I was on the crop input side. Everything from seed breeding to crop inputs and different herbicides and fungicides moving into the fuel space. The biggest difference right off the bat is everybody needs fuel. Before, you kind of had to find what worked for what farmer and depending on their needs or what they were doing, whereas this is universally needed. And so now it's just finding the right people that can make use of it and saving them the most amount of money if we can.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: All right, sounds good. I need to ask. So like, when I am looking to get a fuel quote, like I'm texting, I feel like I'm texting a fuel broker like every day for a period of time. Like, is that how it happens for everybody? Like, is your phone just like on fire for moments for periods of time where it's like everyone wants to know every day what the fuel price is, is doing or is that like a rare thing or a one off? Like, how does this work?
[00:32:53] Speaker C: No, you nailed it. I get calls, a lot of texts that are just like, hey, what's fuel doing in my area today? And that's really common. Sometimes I'll get emails on it and stuff like that.
But I encourage, I encourage folks to do it because it changes these days so often. I think before all of the volatility with the war and Middle east stuff happened, it was less often. Now it can be literally every day. Especially if someone's on the cusp of like making fuel decisions. They'll be asking every day and it is good. Sometimes, like I'll suggest with my customers to call me or text me because sometimes if you're googling it online, there can be different things. Geisel reference for their, their market pricing, but sometimes they'll leave out fuel taxes or sometimes, you know, you'll have to look a little carefully to compare those pricing because it's not always super straightforward. But yeah, I do get that a lot.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: So is there like, if a farm's like reaching out to get a quote from, let's just say from anybody. Like, is there a standard, like asking procedure? Because, like, this is what I get. I get like this range of Prices and then I get some guys that get really excited and they're like but my dividend is going to be this or maybe that or it was this last year. And then like you said some of the tax stuff isn't clear. Like is there just a like a phrase or a way to say it? Like I want an all in type price like because it's confusing out there.
[00:34:17] Speaker C: What I think the standard is is you will get a price that includes fuel taxes except for GST and usually your freight costs. So delivery to your area, I think that's pretty standard unless you're searching online that it might not be. But if you're asking somebody they should generally give you that. The dividend thing is tricky because that I think everybody has to figure out. I, I've seen customers that had to seven or eight quotes and different dividend to percentages. So yep, yeah, that's going to make it harder for folks.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: And I think, I think on that side too is that you're. It's an estimate as well. I don't know, I could be wrong on that. Maybe it's a set number but I believe it's an estimate. But anyways we'll keep going here. I have a farmer that texts me like the rack price. I think it's like Shell Calgary or something like that. It's the rack price and he sends us to me regularly. I at moments of my career have looked at the rack price consistently for a period of time.
But like what, what is that? Like what is the rack price? What does it, what does it mean? And is that the number? If I see that number that's where I'm buying my fuel at that rack price.
[00:35:33] Speaker C: Oh that's a good question because I think there's mixed understanding of understanding of that term too.
Rack should be the price that's purchased before refinery cost basically. But nowadays everyone, because we would buy a certain point under rack pricing and then we'd give a price based on that to a farmer and everybody purchasing from a refinery would be doing that and they'd have different rates below rack. But what I think farmers talking about in this industry is typically when people say what's the rack price? They're expecting what's today's daily market price. And then some people will confuse it with rack petroleum and think that that is somehow connected and tied to their price. So I try to now being doing this for a bit. I try to avoid it all together and I just talk about market price so that there's no confusion.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:32] Speaker C: Because yeah, there, there is a little bit of nuances about that term.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: So let's standardize, let's do it today. Everyone listening, market price plus gst, right? Is that where we is? That's what we want, right? Market price.
All right, we're going to get T shirts.
[00:36:50] Speaker C: Everyone include delivery. Just everybody include delivery. Then we're all talking the same language and include delivery.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: There we go. Include delivery.
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Perfect.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Market price, include delivery plus gst.
The T shirt won't be as nice because we have to put include delivery, but it'll still work. So, so you've been very transparent. I, I've talked, chatted with you for the first time the other day. The reason we're having this conversation though, Laura Lee, I did, I did tease the listeners earlier in the show that I've been back testing fuel nexus for like the last year and I've been, you know, some farmers that I have, you know, tremendous, you know, respect for great business folk have been working with you guys and I got to see a couple different examples, but the one where infrastructure is kind of set up and it was just about, you know, buying fuel from a preferred refinery that they had and going through your programs and stuff. So I got to see that. Then I got to see the farm, 7,000 acre farm, who last summer didn't, wasn't happy with how they were buying fuel, didn't have the infrastructure and went ahead planned with you guys. Got a whole system in place, tanks, whatever. I don't know what was all involved, but got it all set up. And that has already paid for itself.
Yeah, more than what they invested has already paid for itself already. And we're talking about something that happened like six months ago, eight months ago, something like that. I've been, you know, checking on you guys in the background in the meantime, but that's why you're, you're here is that there's some interesting things going on. So why don't you walk me through a little bit about what you guys do, like planning a storage, you know, plan for a farm. Like, is that, is that normal?
[00:38:39] Speaker C: Well, you know, it's funny you bring that up because I have a customer who's one of my dear friends and has been for the last 15 years and he just bought a tank this year.
And on his farm, his rule of thumb is if I can pay off an investment in five years, then it makes sense for my farm. And we're having guys pay off tanks in a year or two, depending on the volume that they need and how we do that and, and why, what makes us I guess a little unique in the industry?
I think all farmers know that there's bulk fuel pricing and that's always going to be a benefit. But if it's $0.02 or $0.03 it's hard to make that investment upfront pay off in the right amount of time. What we do and what we offer that's unique is we do same day delivery as everybody else. If you call us up we can get a load to you that day. But where you save significantly is on our pre purchase program. What it is, is you can plan your fuel ahead of time based on what you know you need and then you book it and pay for it up front and however many months in advance you purchase that will dictate the discount we can provide. So right now, today we would say our discount can range anywhere from $0.04 for a load in, in 30 days or you can get $0.24 off of market price for one in eight months.
Right. So yep, that's, that's significant. Then you're looking at $12,000 off of a $50,000 or sorry, 50,000 liter Super B. So guys start to say okay, well If I'm saving 12 grand per load and I require four loads a year. Right. They can do the math pretty fast and see if it's worth it.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Like can I ask how does it generate the discount for the farmer? Like, because like prepaying for fuel is not, that would not be a foreign term to anybody to prepay for fuel, especially at times of, you know, with maybe tax implications or. Yeah, like that's pretty normal. But why does it generate that savings or that, that discount? I should say.
[00:40:54] Speaker C: Yeah, and I'd say that's what really is kind of what's in fuel Nexus secret sauce. Like we do have proprietary information but in general we have the purchase up front and we're able to generate that kind of discount with time and volume and the purchase upfront. So if you consider all of the customer pool together consistently adding money into that interest and then other business model entities we have in the background working, we're able to generate a profit as well as enough discount to offer farmers these prices. Because getting 24 cents off on your fuel is unheard of without some and some engine generating it like you're talking about. So we found a way to do that. And, and as you said, lots of people are back checking and making sure this thing works and now we've got enough customers under our belt in time that we've, I'd like to think proven it. And yeah we're able to not only provide these discounts which is our kind of standard, always discounts but we also have promotions and different deals too that we'll throw in randomly. Like last October we had something and we have something in April coming up here but even further discounts for guys as well and, and it's all successfully being part of our business model.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: There was a period of time this. When was this? Must have been. Maybe it was the end of 2025 but I don't know what the offer was. I can't remember I didn't look it up before, before recording with you today but I remember just a little bit of buzz around it and like excitement around it and I can't remember obviously that would have worked out to be a sweetheart deal now whatever that was but I just remember like what's going on here and this little buzz of excitement around this special offer. So that's kind of you know, fun to see some creativity as well. And, and what I wrote down here is if you know what's coming as a business, as an organization and can plan around some volume in a big volume space, there's gotta be some advantages there. So that's.
[00:43:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's honestly just becomes in my mind it just becomes a bit of a no brainer if guys can plan. There's.
I often am ask like what's the catch And I'd say you have to have bulk storage and the ability to have cash flow or credit room. Right. Otherwise.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yep, yeah for sure. The other thing I wrote down here, so someone asked me a couple weeks ago like what do I see for like a price, price discrepancy out there when farms are getting a diesel quote and the number that I write down is 20% and that seems high and extreme and people will be like Ryan, you're completely out to lunch.
But I can take an area, get quotes week after week after week and consistently see $0.20, $0.25, $0.30 difference. It shocks me if it isn't. I'm like oh there's only an 18 cent difference this week. Like that's weird but it, it's shocking out there. And so you know we pride the show is you know philosophy is, is about crop marketing and helping farmers with transparency on, and information on selling grain. But also on the buy side here like this is something that it's interesting out there. There's different prices for the same product and it's really interesting. Well, transparency doesn't hurt.
[00:44:23] Speaker C: No, I Think I see a lot of things that affect that. And you're not wrong. Sometimes I see outrageous differences. I think some of it comes down to the pattern of that fuel. When it was purchased, how it was purchased, how the seller's selling it. Is it coming straight out of a refinery where it's a little harder to adjust prices, or is it sitting from a purchase earlier in a tank where you can, you know, maybe. Maybe the company purchased it a lot lower and they're able to, you know, give a discount for it because it's been. Been kind of sitting for a while or just markup. Some companies will. Will have different levels of markup, different infrastructure and things like that. But I have seen massive differences in locations. But generally, what I see with customers, when I'm getting asked for field quotes, mostly I only see within 3 to 5 cents is, I'd say, the most common. And all the time, customers are wanting to compare. There are times I see big, big gaps, and it usually makes me raise my eyebrows and ask what's going on. I start asking more questions about the fuel and it's coming from. But normally, 3 to 5 cents is. Is what I see.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: So as someone that works with this every single day with these volumes, you consistently see that spread of 3 to 5 cents. Like, that's a big. That's a big number at the end of the day, too.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: So, yeah, if you think about 1 cent being worth 500. 500 to a farmer, Super Bee, then yeah, 1 cent adds up real fast.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: So I want to dispel some myths. So my dad has never made a show appearance yet. I don't know if I'll ever get him on camera, but I don't know if I have to come up with, like, a segment for, like, you know, my. My dad's myth. But I want to dispel some myths with you because I think the farmers will appreciate. Appreciate this.
The first one is that you, Laura Lee from Fuel Nexus, you pick which refinery is bringing that fuel to my farm on that day. Like, you're the one who controls that. That's myth number one that I'd like to talk through.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: Yes, that is a good one, because that is absolutely a myth. In fact, what I normally do. So every day, I get pricing from all the refineries that we work with, which are all the major refineries in Western Canada, and we get those prices in and if somebody calls, will be very open to whatever they'd like. If they have a specific refinery brand they want to pull from, that's the pricing I'll give them. I often ask if they'd like to know what the best price is for their location from. From whichever refinery that happens to be. But there are proof points to when you get your load. Because if guys think, okay, well, I'm going to pick a refinery to tell Laura Lee, and Laura Lee is going to go and pick whichever refinery she feels like to send me my fuel, when they get their bill of lading, it will be from the refinery that they specified. So we have that. And we also tell guys, too, that the nice thing about us bringing fuel directly from the refinery, if at any time a guy is curious about his fuel and wants to see, like, a lab analysis report, we can request those from the refinery because it's directed to farm that. I could email out a lab report that actually shows somebody their cetane levels, their density levels, and things like that, which is kind of neat to compare if you're deciding between refineries and have
[00:47:52] Speaker A: some thoughts, you're already dispelling. Dispelling the second myth. The second myth was that because I bought my fuel so cheap, you're sending me junk fuel.
[00:48:02] Speaker C: You don't get it from the dollarama fuel department.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: All right, all right.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: But that is one that is when people ask, they're like, where are you getting your fuel? Is this shipped in from somewhere sketchy?
[00:48:14] Speaker A: The bottom. Bottom of the tank. It's the bottom of the tank. It's the old stuff. Right? That's how you get so cheap.
[00:48:20] Speaker C: No. And. And I know not everybody knows that all fuel sold in Canada has to meet Canadian specs, no matter which refinery you pull it from. So. So that is a fact, too. You're not going to get. Shouldn't be able to get any garbage fuel in Canada.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Third one for you. Last one. Is that this truck with this load of fuel. Again, this is the myth just going to show up out of the blue. I'm not even going to know one is showing up until I see those headlights coming down the driveway. Is that true?
[00:48:50] Speaker C: That should not be the case. Has a truck driver showed up an hour earlier too, than he said that has happened. I'm not gonna lie to you, Brian.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: That is efficient driver. Yep.
[00:49:01] Speaker C: But we do have a very awesome dispatcher named Wade. He's great. And he calls our customers up in advance and plans everything out with them. Ask them all the questions about their yard and what they require require for their fuel delivery. And he keeps them very well informed. I've heard really good things about the delivery. So Far. So, yeah, I would say that.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Well, you've done it. You've done it. Leo's myths or his, his questions? His myths are he's going to be listening to this. So he's, you've got him set straight now. So thank you for that. All right.
We're pretty much getting that time here. Thank you for the extra time today.
I, I, I did want to say, from your perspective, you know, we have this stuff in our backyard. The access to the fuel. Obviously, logistical challenges can happen. We think the fertilizer logistics are going to be a bit of a struggle this year. Any insight on the fuel side? Like, do we think there's going to be any pain on accessing fuel this spring?
[00:50:01] Speaker C: I would say just up front, I'm definitely not going to be the expert on chatting with the refineries and knowing exactly, exactly what will be decided. But the general consensus from all the conversations I have all the time is because we do have our own refineries, we wouldn't expect that we would run out of fuel necessarily, and that the country would kind of step in and say, okay, we're going to be providing local before we're providing internationally. So I think that's the assumption. To know what would actually happen in the case, it would be anybody's guess, but I don't think we're anywhere close to that.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: All right, well, I appreciate that. We need some, like, good news logistically, like, for spring. Like, guys, it's going to be stressful with fert already. We need fuel to be, to be okay.
[00:50:45] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Okay. So you cheated me on the one myth, so I got one more myth for you. All right. I'm throwing one more myth in for Leo's myths. Okay, so last one is that you will change the price.
So if I bought it for a dollar fifty a liter, and, and the market goes to two dollars a liter in this example, Folks, this is fake. This is not real. But if it goes goes to that, you're going to come in and raise that price to $2 for me. Is that fact or myth?
[00:51:15] Speaker C: That for us is 100% myth. And actually I would say 100%. We are proving that that's myth right now. We had an 80 cent per liter deal happening last year, and I have, I think I heard last week we had 20 loads that went out, and they were all ranging around that discount price that guys locked in.
They didn't go up a cent. Nothing went up. It won't. That is what we do. We provide that price security. If we didn't we would not be here very long. But no, we don't change the price ever. And if anything, the only time your price would change is if it goes down. So if you lock in a deal with us and then on day of delivery because we're buying fresh from a refinery, if the market price goes below whatever it is price that you locked in, we actually give you that price. So either in a refund, refund or a credit.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: I beg your pardon? You run that one by me. Run it through me one more time. Did you just say that I'm going to get the lower price?
[00:52:19] Speaker C: Yes, yes. And that is to ensure that people don't feel like they're going to lock it in and then somehow miss out on a better price. If the day delivery comes and, and the market dips, we don't purchase the fuel early, we don't hedge it, we don't put it in tanks and sit. So for us, we're going to pay the price of the market price and if it goes down, the farmers get that price.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Can you extend that on a few other things that the farmers use? Maybe on fertilizer too?
[00:52:46] Speaker C: I could make a list, but maybe not today.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: All right. All right. Well, we've, we've covered a lot of ground today. Laura Lee, what, what's the best way for farmers to get in contact with you? And is there any incentive? Obviously there's the $0.04 starting on April 20, but is there any incentive for folks here that are looking to maybe get some fuel on order for this spring? Yeah, anything cooking offer wise and how the people get a hold of you?
[00:53:16] Speaker C: Yes, excellent question.
Yeah, we are actually matching Carney's 4 cent discount. So starting Monday we're going to also discount our fuel by an extra 4 cents other than the fuel tax going down. And that'll be on top of all of our regular discounts. So if we Normally give say 4 cents for 30 days, you'll get 8 cents off from us and 4 cents off from, from Carney's suspension of the tax. So it'll be a good time to think about purchasing fuel. And of course, of course that'll go towards anything long term too. So if you're booking eight months out or your fall fuel for, for harvest, you'd get the extra 4 cents off from us on top of our 24 cents max. Right.
So, so that's happening, but that ends the end of April. So it's only really for the next two weeks starting on Monday. And then for contacting me, give me A text or a column. My cell at 403-51263. 77. That's my work line, so anytime. And then you can email me too at. Well, my name is hard to spell, so I don't know if you can show it on the screen.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll show it on the screen. I'll get the editor to show it on the screen and we'll put it in the show for you as well. Yeah, there you go.
[00:54:32] Speaker C: Awesome. Perfect. Thank you.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Now you're going to have like a couple hundred farmers texting you. What's. That's the. What. What did we. What's our T shirts? The market price including delivery plus gst.
[00:54:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, perfect.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: There we go. All right, Laura Lee, why I hope to have you on the show again in the near future. We want more insight and perspective around diesel fuel in the prairie. So. So hopefully you guys are game for that. And again, you can check them out fuel Nexus and go and find that website or check them out on, on LinkedIn. Thanks a bunch for your time. Anything else before I let you go?
[00:55:08] Speaker C: No, just thanks, Ryan. I really appreciate being on here and being able to give farmers another option.
[00:55:14] Speaker A: Awesome. You bet. We'll keep up the good work and we'll talk to you real soon.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: Take care. Bye.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: Now, of course, all of us here, what the futures. Appreciate the continued support of John Deere and I, well this week, this time of year where I live in, in harvest profit, John Deere operations center kind of live in both worlds right now, getting things set up for the growing season. We're going to be planting crops here in like three weeks or less hopefully. And so of course we're getting organized, we're getting our workflow planned.
We are, you know, from a farm business perspective, crop marketing perspective, we spent earlier this week just reviewing yield expectations, contracts, targets, percent sold cash flow and kind of went through standard procedure, but just making sure that we are organized and prepared.
Whatever the market throws our way, we're ready. Even have our hedges in there as well so that we can get a full picture of what's going on on harvest profit. But I also wanted to just shed some light. I talked about this briefly a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know what it was called. My brother was excited because he got access to a tool. I don't know if it's necessarily a brand new tool from John Deere, but if you go to Deere CA and check out run it your way, it's basically an expanded digital toolkit that gives you Greater access to diagnose, repair and work on your own equipment, maintain, use, all that, all that stuff.
And so my brother's pretty excited. My brother's, he's the heavy duty mechanic on the farm. I can't fix anything. You know, my dad, we started that the same. He taught us kids all the same. Like we started doing our maintenance of our lawnmowers and our small stuff when we were kids.
Worked our way up to helping do oil changes on the 4020 and the 4440 and, and then of course got very comfortable with grease guns and didn't have electric grease guns back in the day, but we got comfortable with, with keeping everything greased and lubricated, maintaining our own vehicles, all that stuff. But my brother, he's the heavy duty mechanic, he kept it going. He's very excited about run it your way and he just, just recently here got a, a little bit of a tour of it and, and hopefully I can get someone from, from Deere. I will try to make a point of that, getting someone to come join me and, and talk it, talk it through as well. Because my brother's good at fixing things. He was excited about this tool being able to, to help him diagnose and take it to the next level on the repair side. All right, so again, big thanks to John Deere for supporting the show. Basically, guys, we are eating your veggies in here. You know, as I said earlier in the show, you know, you want to take a look? Well, number one, barley, if I have to put like a, a warning sign, like a red, a red flashing light warning sign on, on a crop that like barley and canola are kind of the ones that, that I, you know, alarm bells are kind of going off to make sure that you are at your comfort level. I had a great discussion with a farmer, number one. So eating your veggies for number one, let's say, you know, making sure we're snugged up here on barley and canola sales. But I did talk to a farmer through an example brought in their broker into the conversation because we're basically, we're trying to figure out how aggressive can we be selling feed barley. In Alberta they have something called the variable price benefit. So I went through that example with them, but values aren't quite high enough in new crop feed barley to offset the risk using just variable price benefit alone. But you know, I was sitting there saying there's a lot of barley going in globally, this is certainly a sign. And I said, you know, what if I want to be bullish, feed barley. I do think that I would need to be bullish corn. I think if corn goes from 475 to 550 or 6 bucks then sure I could jump on board with, with barley rallying in that environment like not just barley obviously, but other crops. And so we went down the path examples of, of how could we manage risk by against a buyout by being aggressive on, on our barley sales. And we kind of came to the consensus that, you know, replacing some of that risk with an out of the money call option. I think it was like 8 cents on corn, 8 cents to buy this darn thing off July and just get us, you know, a good chunk into the growing season. Halfway, not quite, but close to halfway and see how we're feeling about our barley crop. Can be an aggressive seller and replace the risk with that corn called. Now other factors come in and say Ryan, you're completely out to lunch. Other things could happen.
But with this farm's example, their comfort level that yeah, that was a just a true conversation about how can we get aggressive, how can we manage it. And again it's, it's them, it's their comfort level on how to, how to approach this.
Number two, I like wheat targets right now, guys. I like trying to reward this rally. If we are in a weather market, which I'd say we are for wheat, it could be tricky, can be explosive. Yet to the upside, rains come in and the markets can pull back. But I like spending your time and energy in the wheat market getting some targets done, getting some, some stuff kind of sold and just kind of rewarding this action. Right. Everything else is maybe getting a little bit quieter but rewarding this action in the wheat market. So I like that for eating your veggies for number two and number three, I think we'll go with with Laura Lee here and just maybe be patient on diesel purchases. But honestly folks, I've asked you to review private insurance, crop insurance in the past. I, I'd say have a discussion with, with fuel nexus as well. I again, I don't know if it's a fit for your farm or, or what, but they're doing it different and to me that's where the phone call. All right, so that's it for eating your veggies here for this week. Well folks, we also thank Brett Young for their support of the what the futures podcast and I want to just highlight brettyoung Ca.
You can go. Actually they, they send some great emails out every quite regularly but they sent some great emails out, but I just want to highlight here that as as you're going through the growing season, if you're looking at seed production, forage seed production through Brett Young, you've got that contracted and you're you're in the loop. Don't forget about the guide, the guide to growing your forage crops. And it's a dandy of a guide.
Lots of good tips on there. If you're wondering what to do in certain situations based off the weather, based on what's going on around you, take a peek. Bret Young, C.A.
you can find the seed production guide and it's full of useful tips to help you navigate the 2026 growing season.
All right, folks, well, again, thank you so much for hanging out. We will have content for you while I'm off for a couple of a couple of weeks here, I guess is the way it's going to work out. But Brian Como with Ireland Como lafoy, he's going to do cup of coffee for the next couple of Tuesdays.
So make sure you bombard him with with questions.
We'll try to get him some questions before he records as well. I'll forward those on and then I will have a couple of fun segments lined up for you as well for the next couple of Fridays.
So that's it for me. Next time you see me, hopefully I've got all the bags under the eyes. Maybe they disappear. Probably not. But excited to jump on a plane here with the kiddos and go and spend some family time together. So have a great couple of weeks, folks. Keep it tuned here for content for the what the Futures podcast. My name is Ryan and I'm out of here.
