COMPETITION AT PORT

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COMPETITION AT PORT

• W.A. GRAINS GROUP
• By Doug Clarke

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Chairmans Report

• During harvest a number of members contact me
  regarding CBH operations, mainly that the highest
  cost to farmers operations per hectare today is
  getting the grain from the paddock on to the
  ship. (Farm Budget Guide quotes up to 91.56 per
  tonne from Merredin if the grain is pooled)
• On Monday the 19th of January we took these
  concerns to CBH and had a meeting with Colin
  Tutt, operations manager for CBH Storage and
  Handling. The meeting was most amicable and
  Colin indicated he would take the concerns back
  to management to see if they could be addressed.
• The concerns discussed were
• CBH is more market focused than grower focused.
• There is a need for grower averaging.
• The supply chain costs are escalating and CBH
  needs to look at their part in the cost.
  (Receival and assessment fee increased by 25,
  warehousing increased from between 18 and 62,
  fobbing increased by 100 in each of the last
  two years).
• Possible solutions discussed were
• Franchising the current receival sites.
• Grower averaging.
• Reassessment or removal of grain classifications
  to enable farmers to receive the arbitrage and
  not the marketers.
• Should franchising be achieved then we will be
  able to retain receival sites, meet the growers
  needs and not the marketers, provide a service
  that better suits the growers, reduce stress at
  harvest instead of it being increased, remove the
  need to blend grain on farm to meet certain
  standards, improve site performance.

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Other items that were discussed.
On farm storage, 20 of the farmers producing 80
of the grain 2009 that is 12 million tonne so if
20 equals 9.6million ton and 10 chose to leave
the CBH system they could take up to 4 million
tonne from the CBH system, the system would not
be viable. We need to fix the current system
before it collapses, the drivers are now in place
for farmers to go towards more on farm storage.
Due to high supply chain costs, they can not
afford to use the system as it is currently
operating/costing. The system needs to find
efficiencies to stay viable. We need to see
change now before farmers finish their budgets as
there are many looking at on farm
storage. Subsidiary companies need to be
contributing to the group and be reducing the
total costs of farmers, those that are not
performing need to be cut loose. Marketers are
promoting storage on farm ( and farmers are being
paid for it instead of using the warehousing
system and having to pay). Grain Pool should not
be shutting pools while there is a GLA. There
needs to be transparency in the paper work of the
grain pools barley pools, all costs should be
itemized. I will be meeting with Neil Wandell on
Monday the 2nd of February.
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Costs increase while grain prices have decreased
160/tonne
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Bulk Export Shipping Port Outloading Service
Charges gt 22 days N/A gt 15 days lt 22 days 1.10
p/t 20. Vessel Notification Fee gt0lt15 days 2.20
p/t A nomination fee will apply according to the
length of notice a customer provides for a
shipment. Notice of shipment includes the grade,
tonnage season where the customer has full
entitlement for the nominated vessel within the
zone. 21. Export Outloading Charge 8.00
p/t Applies to each tonne of grain loaded onto a
customers nominated vessel. This charge includes
the cost of moving grain into and throughout the
port terminal to be placed in a shipping
position, and loading onto a vessel. 22. Shipping
Overtime Charges See below Overtime charges may
be incurred where loading shifts of the vessel
fall into the overtime schedules shown
below. Customers are able to nominate which
shifts their ship is loaded in by booking
labour as instructed by them.
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Fobbing Costs
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