CBH reaches $8.6m tonnes so far as some growers finish Harvest

This article is bought to you by Fleming Contracting and Reading Transport.

CBH Operations Update

This week saw deliveries slow down in all zones with 1.4 million tonnes delivered into the network since last Friday.

CBH General Manager Operations Ben Macnamara said things have really slowed down in the Esperance and Geraldton zones in particular.  

“Majority of growers in these areas will be finished within a week if they aren’t already.  

“Deliveries might continue up until Christmas, but these will be few, and likely to be straight to port so we will close up most sites in these zones within the next week.

“With the shipping stem fully booked for the first few months of the new year we will start to turn our focus to moving tonnes to port so we can meet those shipping requirements,” said Mr Macnamara.

Zone Summary

Geraldton zone

• Weather was favourable this week, and good conditions in the next fortnight will see the zone finished before Christmas.  
• More sites closed this week, with only the larger sites due to be open in the lead up to Christmas.  
• We are expecting around 100,000 more tonnes to delivered.
• Quality of recent receivals has declined slightly but overall quality has still been better than expected.

Kwinana North zone

• Weather was favourable this week, with good conditions to continue, which will see the zone close to finishing by the end of next week.
• Three more sites have closed for the season this week, and we expect to close more next week as the zone winds down.
• Wheat is making up 95 per cent of deliveries.
• We are still managing a range in quality and have opened a seconds stack in Merredin to cater for wheat with very high screenings.

Kwinana South zone

• Hot weather this week has seen harvest bans in place in some areas.
• Some smaller sites have closed for the season with more to follow in the next week as more growers finish their season.  
• With the weather heating up this week we are focusing on managing our people’s safety on site using a range of measures to mitigate any health-related impact the heat may have.

Albany zone

• Good weather has seen a steady week of receivals in the Albany zone with almost half a million tonnes received, a slight drop from the previous week.  
• Some sites in the western part of the zone including Cranbrook experienced peak deliveries this week, while the eastern parts of the zone are winding down.
• We will look to close some sites in the north eastern part of the zone next week as growers finish and demand drops off.
• Canola is all but finished, with some substantial late barley deliveries this week, but wheat is making up most of the tonnes at the moment.
• Yields and quality have improved as the western areas get into their harvesting program.

Esperance zone

• Deliveries were impacted by wet weather late last week and early this week.
• Clear weather mid-week saw tonnes delivered, mostly to port.
• Sites around the zone are starting to close as most growers have finished or are very close to finishing.  
• Esperance terminal will remain open in the lead up to Christmas to collect any late deliveries.

*Tonnes stated are accurate as of 3am Friday 5 December.

Ad - Fleming Contracting - A personalised Hay Contracting service - Ad
Ad - Looking to cart Grain, Hay, Machinery, General Freight and Wide Loads - Give Reading Transport a call - Ad 

Market Update

Wheat

 Early this week we saw reasonable volumes of wheat sold by growers as APW1 rallied to A$348 per tonne free in store (FIS) Kwinana before prices fell late in the week on softness in the market and the trade covering a number of early shipping positions. ABARE’s December crop report was published with a 2019-20 national wheat crop estimate of 15.852 million tonnes. This was based on an estimate of 6.0 million tonnes of production in Western Australia, which some are saying is optimistic. International market is still showing interest for lower grades, however these are now very limited with the majority of the crop being higher protein.

Barley

 Malt barley market continues to firm with Spartacus malting barley up to A$310 per tonne FIS Kwinana this week as the industry looks to cover demand both internationally and domestically. Feed market also firmed this week up A$15 per tonne to A$290s per tonne FIS Kwinana as growers were reluctant sellers at lower levels. Feed barley looks competitive against wheat in feed rations which is enticing end user demand and is likely to place a flaw in feed values.

Canola

 Non-GM canola attracted interest this week lifting to A$630 per tonne FIS Kwinana with GM still floating around the A$585-590 per tonne FIS Kwinana. ABARE estimates the Australian crop at 2.0 million tonnes which will result in limited exports to both Europe and China this season.

Oats

 Prices this week have been as high as A$385-390 per tonne FIS Kwinana however grower selling has been limited.

www.cbh.com.au

Ad - Fleming Contracting - A personalised Hay Contracting service - Ad
Ad - Looking to cart Grain, Hay, Machinery, General Freight and Wide Loads - Give Reading Transport a call - Ad

.