June 12, 2009
CBH Group drafting plan to reduce grain export delays
Australian grain handler CBH Group will unveil a plan this month to ease shipping delays at west Australian grain ports and boost shipments.
Western Australia is the country's top grain-exporting state, but slow and aging rail links between the state's silos and its ports mean that ships often have to wait for the grain's arrival before they can load, leading to shipping queues.
A CBH spokeswoman said some details of the plan could be released as early as next week.
The plan will then be discussed at a June 22 meeting between CBH and the Australian Grain Exporters Association, which represents grain traders such as Cargill, Bunge and Glencore International, CBH said.
The lack of rail capacity and poor state of some country rail lines have led grain handlers to rely more on higher-cost road transport to move grain from farms to and the wharves. Grain handlers such as AWB and GrainCorp have since boosted rail capacity in eastern Australia, but the rail problems of the west have yet to be resolved.
GrainCorp chairman Donald Taylor said that Australia's rail system was in urgent need of government investment to improve transport efficiency.
