Cargill welcomes arrival of export mobile ship loader
Cargill has welcomed the arrival of its export mobile ship loader in Port Adelaide, signalling a major new investment for the South Australia agriculture sector.
The mobile ship loader is thought to be the first purpose built mobile ship loader in Australia, built to Australian standards and delivering superior loading rates.
The port facility loaded its first shipment of grain for export last week. Erik Wibholm, MD, Cargill in Australia, said the new ship loader reinforces Cargill’s long-term commitment to the future and success of Australian agriculture and farmers, and we are delighted with this new opportunity. “This new port facility will bring investment to the Port Adelaide port zone, and enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of South Australia’s export supply chain. This is particularly important in large exports years like this one, where increased port capacity creates new market opportunities for South Australian growers. Increased port capacity also offers greater flexibility in serving export customer demand, which is so important in the ever competitive global commodity market.
The facility will complement our SA storage and handling GrainFlow sites at Crystal Brook, Maitland, Mallala, and Pinnaroo through ensuring we remain competitive up country and along the SA bulk grain-export supply chain to the benefit of our farmer and export customers,” Mr Wibholm said.
The new facility will provide a high standard of quality control with the latest technology implemented to ensure world class sampling, testing and screening, ensuring quality product is delivered to customers.
The port facility will operate out of Berth 20 at Port Adelaide and was designed in Europe. Its significant components were supplied and built in Europe, and the superstructure was built in China.
Demand abroad on the rise
With a monster east coast harvest done and dusted and grain in the bin and the Christmas holiday period behind us, growers will likely start looking at marketing the next chunk of their crop.
Read MoreFocus turns to moving grain in early 2021
The 2020/21 harvest has been littered with delays due to rain events and fire ban days however just prior to Christmas, bulk handlers were reporting the largest ever receivals through their storages and with some NSW farmers in the southern regions still expected to harvest into the early parts of 2021, the numbers will only get bigger.
Read MoreWA Market Wrap - December
With the 2020 harvest quickly drawing to a close, the surprises for the year have kept coming, albeit this time for most its certainly been an agreeable one with yields undoubtedly better than expected in most cases.
Read MoreBig exports puts the Australian supply chain to the test
Australia’s export infrastructure is facing one of its greatest tests with a near record crop on the East Coast and surging demand for Australian grain around the world.
Read More