CBH operation rebates are unlikely as the company invests in infrastructure instead: Simon Stead

This news came from the co-operative's annual general meeting last Friday where growers were informed of the low probability of operation rebates in the future.

CBH is predicting larger crop sizes for the future and has decided to reallocate rebates towards preparing for bigger crops.

"We are spending $4 billion over 10 years, we see it as pretty unlikely to be providing an operations rebate going forward," Mr Stead said.

"It would be counterintuitive to provide rebates and have to increase fees to build the network the crop size requires."

Mr Stead said he had begun discussions with members that while CBH couldn't produce a rebate, it would implement some form of grower payment to "reward their loyalty".

A loyalty payment has no linkage to profit, and is paid on a fairly constant basis based on patronage.

With the planned infrastructure developments, CBH plans to transport three million tonnes per month by 2033 to keep up with coming supply/demand issues.

The decision is off the back of CBH's largest-ever surplus of $497.7 million for the 2021/22 financial year, largely driven by the Marketing and Trading division, which reported a surplus of $437.9m.

"Marketing and Trading's surplus was primarily due to the Russia/Ukraine conflict, which significantly increased the international value of wheat far beyond all expectations," Mr Stead said.

"The CBH Operations division also had a fantastic year, reporting a $57.9m surplus while also safely receiving the record crop."

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Throughout the year CBH invested a record $348m into the network and added 2.4 million tonnes of temporary storage.

At the AGM, CBH chief executive officer Ben Macnamara said the last season was one of CBH's safest on record, following the 2021/22 financial year which had the lowest amount of injuries in the history of the co-op.

Mr Macnamara believed this was an exceptional result, particularly when considering the circumstances in which they were achieved.

"We went into last year's harvest with one of our least experienced workforces ever," Mr Macnamara said.

"They worked together to thoroughly train new starters, manage and reduce risks, and implement improvements to achieve a record safety result."

The average site cycle time this year was about 40 minutes, with CBH hiring more than 100 new road subcontractors to support the massive outloading task.

It also worked with its rail provider, Aurizon, to improve rail performance by adding three additional fleets and co-ordinating surge outloading programs.

"As a result, we delivered a record 18.1mt to our domestic and international customers - setting new records for domestic outturns and critically export shipping," Mr Macnamara said

"The team delivered an exceptional financial performance, exported 9.8mt and paid $5 billion to WA growers for their grain."