July 3, 2008

Western Australia state's Grain Licensing Authority Thursday announced the approval of three special export licenses.

The licences were for 120,000 tonnes of feed barley to the Middle East, 60,000 tonnes of rapeseed to the EU and 60,000 tonnes of rapeseed to South Asia from crops to be harvested late in 2008.

Chairman Wayne Obst said the total tonnage of rapeseed applied for was not granted, as the authority believes it is still too early in the growing season to commit such a large proportion of the predicted rapeseed crop to special export licenses.

These license approvals bring the total granted for new crop rapeseed to 205,000 tonnes. The authority has already granted 220,000 tonnes of barley under multi-season licenses, taking total barley approved for special export licenses from the 2008 crop to 340,000 tonnes, he said in a statement.

The federal government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimates rapeseed production in 2008 in Western Australia at 730,000 tonnes and barley at 2.1 million tonnes - the vast bulk of both being available for export.

The authority has the power to approve bulk export shipments of barley, lupins or rapeseed by groups other than majority exporter Grain Pool, a unit of grower-owned Cooperative Bulk Handling Ltd., under the Grain Marketing Act of 2002.