From prairie to port, grain is queued up.
While many blamed last winter’s problems on the extreme cold and the railways, this year most blame lack of sales and ships.
“It’s real tight out here in the country,” said Darrel Veregin, a Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator manager at Kamsack, Sask. “The farmers need to deliver board grains for their fall cash flow and nothing is moving and we can’t help them. It’s frustrating for producers.”
Grain companies and the Canadian Wheat Board say the slowdown is due to fewer sales and thus fewer ships in port. Shippers are loading grain, much of it from the 1996-97 crop year, at both the West Coast and Thunder Bay,Ont. as it is allocated to vessels reaching port.
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Contract calls delayed
An early harvest has brought new-crop-year deliveries to the elevator door in limited amounts because acreage-based delivery and contract calls were delayed until recently. Deliveries on those contracts are further hampered by the congested transportation system.
Prairie elevator space tightened to a near stranglehold last week, dropping to 17 percent in Saskatchewan, 19 percent in Manitoba and 33 percent in Alberta.
“Anything below 20 percent is basically zero percent as the grain companies lose the flexibility they need to handle new farmer deliveries,” said Jim Pietryk, a wheat board spokesperson.
Richard Wansbutter, Sask Pool’s general manager of marketing and transportation, said: “We know there are a lot of concerned farmers out there wanting to move grain inventories from this year and last … . With 12 percent free space in our elevator system it is nearly impossible for us to accept producer grain deliveries. We just don’t have the cars right now.”
Rail car unloads in the northern British Columbia port of Prince Rupert were down two weeks ago to 270, of a targeted 800. Ships arriving this week and last were expected to drain 240,000 tonnes from the backlog.
Vessels in port
“Prince Rupert unloads are down and that alone causes problems of rail car availability when we don’t have the empty cars to ship back to the Prairies,” said Jim Feeny, of CN Rail. “It is getting better, though, as vessels are now in port. We’ve had 660 unloads already this week (as of Sept. 11) and it is improving every day.”
CP Rail faces similar challenges, said public affairs officer Ian La Couvee.
“During week five (of the crop year, Sept. 1-7) we moved 2,500 cars to the port of Vancouver but they only unloaded 1,604.
“Since the crop year began we have a cumulative shortfall of unloads reaching 6,000 cars so far. Thunder Bay had a strong summer and a planned reduction there will lower performance to the east.”
Said Wansbutter: “It’s not the board or railways’ fault. It is more a seasonal thing and it will begin to loosen up as we move into the fall.”
