A mammoth harvest seemed sure to bring a mammoth logistical challenge, but CBH seems to have taken this in its stride with its best-ever rail performance for January, with rail and shipping performance continuing above the past five-year average.
CBH railed a record 989,000 tonnes to all four ports and the Metro Grain Centre (MGC) last month, surpassing the previous record of 971,000t set in January, 2019.
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This achievement also marks the seventh consecutive month of record rail performance starting in July 2022.
In January, CBH shipped the same amount of grain as the previous record for all of October to January combined, a record 1.73 million tonnes.
Road outloading also continues to perform strongly, with 864,000t moved by road, well above the previous five-year January average of 800,000t.
CBH Group chief operations officer Mick Daw said given the great start to the season, CBH planned for the harvest to be larger than normal and prepared accordingly.
It added additional capacity at sites, including 2.3mt of temporary storage to the existing 2.4mt from last year.
"We implemented bagging options at Kellerberrin, Kalannie and Marchagee sites, to assist with the volumes that were expected to be delivered there, which was successful," Mr Daw said.
CBH continually increased the amount of grain moved from sites to ports so it could receive, store and outload the much-anticipated harvest.
"With this improved logistical capacity, combined with a slow start to harvest due to weather, CBH was able to reduce our carry-over position heading in to harvest 2022-23 to less than 3mt," Mr Daw said.
He said CBH had enough storage in all zones, however onfarm storage was still an option every year and growers who chose to utilise this option could make their own arrangements.
"Growers can make their own decision if farm storage is appropriate for their business," Mr Daw said.
The Albany Grain Terminal set a new record for January, shipping 363,000t for the month, beating the previous best of 360,000t in January 2017.
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"With improved supply chain performance, especially through road and rail capacity, we were able to ship a record amount of grain from the CBH network," Mr Daw said.
He thanked everyone for "playing their part" in the record-breaking performance, especially on back-to-back record harvests.
"This is a historic achievement for everyone involved in the Western Australian grain industry, including growers, their families and employees, the CBH team, contractors, grower groups, transporters, agribusinesses, agronomists and the communities that support farming in WA," Mr Daw said.
"It is incredible that the WA grains industry has experienced two back-to-back record harvests.
With harvesting drawing to a close, Mr Daw said CBH would be transitioning to a busy outloading program and was looking forward to continuing the gains it had made in strengthening its supply chain.
"We want to keep our supply chain outloading and getting grain to customers at this pace in a sustainable manner in the near-term," he said.
