April 2, 2009
Western Australia grain exports hit record in March
Grain exports from Western Australia, the country's top grain exporting state, reached a record 1.54 million tonnes in March, as grain handler CBH Group worked to overcome bottlenecks that caused port congestion.
CBH said Western Australia had exported 5.04 million tonnes of grain from the 12.3 million tonne 2008-09 harvest.
The company said the state's grain exports are likely to be a record through to the end of August.
CBH operations general manager Colin Tutt said the group ramped up its shipping and grain accumulation programme in early February to meet a tight shipping schedule and ease congestion at Western Australia's four grain ports.
Tutt blamed the congestion on poor rail infrastructure, and CBH had added extra trucks to boost transport capacity to more than 1.1 million tonnes a month from 795,000 tonnes.
CBH has also implemented a temporary revised shipping allocation system to regulate berth bookings at ports to match monthly shipping requirements with the capacity of the transport infrastructure.
Due to the port delays, Australia was at risk losing some of its major export markets to competitors.
