WITH the winter crop harvest all but done, receivals in the major three bulk handlers across Australia have topped 30 million tonnes.
CBH in Western Australia, Viterra in South Australia and GrainCorp down the east coast have recorded a combined total of 31.21 million tonnes with harvest virtually complete.
The official figures underline a big Australian crop, but are far from the full story, with large amounts of grain going to rival bulk handlers such as AWB’s GrainFlow and big privately-owned storages.
In the east, GrainCorp spokesman Angus Trigg said there had been a return to a more normal split in deliveries between feed and milling grade wheat, following the floods of last harvest which caused significant downgrading across virtually the length of the company’s storage footprint.
This year there were large pockets of downgrading on the NSW/Queensland border and through Central West NSW, but nothing on the scale of last year.
GrainCorp’s total deliveries to January 10 totalled 10.74m tonnes, with 1.59m tonnes going into the Queensland ports’ catchment, 5.9m tonnes in NSW and 3.25m tonnes in the sites that export to Victorian ports.
In South Australia, Viterra has taken 6.47m tonnes, with receivals still trickling in.
The company said accumulation and preparing grain for export was now the focus, and site staff were busy outloading in order to meet export demand.
In terms of receivals, most grain now going into the system is now coming from grain previously stored on-farm.
In Western Australia, CBH said receivals had exceeded expectations, with over 14m tonnes now in the system, up from pre-harvest estimates of 13 to 13.5m tonnes.
A highlight there was a record 3.5m tonnes in the Geraldton zone.
In the Kwinana zone, area manager Brett Jeffrey said with the possibility of further trickles into the system, the total tonnage will nudge 7m tonnes.
Further to the south, in the Albany zone, there is still a couple of hundred thousands tonnes expected to come in, with current receivals at 2.4m tonnes, while there is also grain to come in the state’s south-east in the Esperance zone.
Source: farmonline.com.au
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