March 12, 2009

The Canadian Wheat Board is seeing record grain movement this winter and should be able to continue that pace through spring, a CWB spokeswoman said.

 

From October through February, the CWB cleared a total of 7.7 million tonnes of grain, including wheat, durum, and barley - well above the 10-year average of 6.8 million tonnes for the period, said Maureen Fitzhenry, CWB media relations manager.

 

In February alone, the CWB moved 1.0 million tonnes of grain through the west coast, which compares with the 10-year average of 778,000 tonnes. She added that weekly railcar unloads in Vancouver came in above 3,800 cars during the past week, well above normal levels closer to 2,400 to 2,500 cars.

 

The winter rail program, which moves western Canadian grain to export positions in the East, should also come in above the 10-year average of 8,701 cars, or 696,080 tonnes and the previous record of 9,806 cars, or 784,480 tonnes, said Fitzhenry.

 

She added that the actual numbers for the 2008-09 (August-July) winter rail programmes were not yet available.

 

Grain movement for the CWB got off to a slow start in 2008-09 due to tight carry-in supplies from the previous year. However, once the large new-crop supplies became available, activity picked up considerably in October.

 

"It has been really important that the programme be ramped up in the post-harvest period," said Fitzhenry.

 

She said the record pace of grain movement over the winter months had more to do with the transportation system than the CWB itself.

 

"We want to give credit where credit is due, and the railways have been performing very well for us this year," said Fitzhenry. "Our presumption is that due to the economic recession, all movement in the other sectors that use rail transportation is considerably reduced, so there are more crews and more cars for grain," she said.

 

"Not only are we seeing more car availability, but when there are delays because of weather, the railways' ability to catch up is much better than we've seen in the past as well," said Fitzhenry. She added that railcar turnaround has been considerably faster than average.

 

While the October-February period is normally the peak time for CWB grain movement, "there is a strong possibility that March will be bigger than February and April will be bigger than March," said Fitzhenry.

 

She said CWB analysts were expecting to see the strong pace continue through June but added that volatile global market conditions could change that outlook.