THE EXTENT of the woes for bulk handler GrainCorp due to the east coast drought is clear in the company’s harvest update statistics.
As of Wednesday, with harvest all but wrapped up in NSW and Queensland and with only the Western District in Victoria yet to have the bulk of its grain hit the bin, GrainCorp’s total receivals were just 12.2 per cent of the bin-bursting 2016-17 harvest.
This season GrainCorp has received 1.84 million tonnes into its network, compared to 15m tonnes in 2016-17 when Australia broke its record for most winter crop produced.
Of the meagre deliveries, Victoria, traditionally a relative minnow in terms of total tonnage in comparison to NSW, has contributed well over 50pc of the deliveries, with 1.13m tonnes.
Rain through Victoria in mid-December caused substantial delays, however most areas were wrapped up by the start of 2019.
Total deliveries into GrainCorp’s Queensland storages tallied just 107,000 tonnes, only roughly 2675 B-Double loads.
Meanwhile, in South Australia, Viterra said that up until December 30 it had received 3.76m tonnes.
The focus in SA is now on the lower Eyre Peninsula, with 323,000 tonnes delivered between December 17 and 30 into Viterra’s western zone, encompassing the EP.
CBH, in Western Australia, has taken close to 15.7m tonnes, with the solid harvest in the west now drawing to a close, with only far southern areas yet to finish.