Australia’s Commodity Ag to start WA grain exports

Australian agribusiness Commodity Ag will export its first cargo from its Albany port terminal facility this week, boosting export competition in Western Australia against established grain handlers CBH and Bunge.

The company intends to export 600,000 t/yr from its Albany port facility, but said its capacity would be constrained by other users of the general-purpose berth. The loading capacity of the mobile shiploader indicated in its ACCC application would be a quarter of CBH's total loading capacity at Albany, according to Southern Ports.

Western Australia's bulk grain exports are dominated by CBH — which has port terminals at Geraldton, Kwinana, Esperance and Albany — and Bunge, which has a port terminal at Bunbury. But barriers to entry for smaller port terminal service providers such as Commodity Ag have been reduced by the availability of mobile shiploaders, which allow trucks to unload grain directly in the port and onto a vessel.

Commodity Ag's Albany facility will use a 400 t/hr mobile shiploader to load cargoes onto Handymax-sized vessels that are approximately 50,000 deadweight tonnes, according to its March 2023 application to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to be an exempt service provider of port terminal services.

Commodity Ag has no other cargoes for loading on its shipping stem accessed on 11 July. It became an exempt service provider of port terminal services in May 2023, which means the company is not required to comply with parts 3 to 6 of the Port Terminal Access (Bulk Wheat) Code of Conduct. Part 3 of the code requires a port terminal service provider to not discriminate in favour their own trading business or an exporter that is an associated entity, and not hinder access for another exporter when providing bulk grain port terminal services.