Rail service issue | The elevators association says there is a large shortfall of rail cars
The company that monitors the efficiency of prairie grain movement says it is still too early to make definitive statements about changing shipping patterns in Western Canada.
Mark Hemmes, president of Quorum Corp., said patterns have not changed significantly since the elimination of single desk marketing.
After a slow start to the 2012-13 crop year, grain shipments to the West Coast picked up considerably in September with total car unloads in Vancouver coming close to breaking weekly records throughout the latter half of the month.
Read Also
Canola support gets mixed response
A series of canola industry support measures announced by the federal government are being met with mixed reviews.
“We started off pretty slow in August, but September has been remarkably good,” said Hemmes.
“Overall traffic flows are not remarkably different from what we’ve seen in the past with the exception of having a little bit (more) durum moving through the West Coast.”
Grain industry stakeholders are watching closely to see if the elimination of single desk marketing effects shipping patterns and demand for rail service.
In Australia, producers and farm groups say the elimination of single desk marketing in that country had a profound affect. They say grain movements were more predictable and delivery bottlenecks less common when there was one agency in charge of marketing the country’s wheat crop.
According to statistics from the Canadian Grain Commission, total grain shipments from Western Canada’s primary elevators in the first 11 weeks of the 2012-13 crop year were up slightly from the same time last year.
As of Oct. 14, primary elevators in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia had shipped nearly 7.61 million tonnes of grains, pulses and oilseeds.
Total shipments at the same time last year were 7.46 million tonnes.
“I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in those year-to-date numbers,” said Hemmes.
It is still too early to speculate on whether Canadian exporters are attempting to move a significantly larger proportion of the Canadian wheat crop to export position during the traditionally busy October-December period, he said.
Prairie farmers are still feeling their way through the new marketing environment, he said. Some growers are likely to delay important marketing decisions until they have had more time to assess their options.
That could have an unknown impact on deliveries to country elevators and shipments to export terminals.
“It’s not the best set of circumstances to start measuring whether or not we’ve got some remarkable changes in logistical patterns.”
There have been other indications in the past few weeks to suggest that grain shipments to port and requests for rail cars at country elevators have picked up significantly.
Last week, officials with Canadian Pacific Railway said their company moved record amounts of western Canadian grain to export and domestic destinations in September.
CPR spokesperson Ed Greenberg said operational improvements made last year have allowed the company to reduce scheduling variability, improve access to rail cars and move grain more efficiently.
However, Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevators Association, said CPR has outstanding orders for 4,500 grain cars, which is an unusually large number of unfilled orders even for the busy post-harvest period.
“As the fall progresses here, we’re starting to see some shortfalls that are concerning in terms of service, primarily on CP but on both roads there are shortfalls,” Sobkowich said.
“It is a very large shortfall … no question about it. We normally have stress on the transportation system during harvest time, but CP’s performance in particular is very poor with that size of shortfall.”
Greenberg said in an email that CPR would not respond to WGEA’s claim without first receiving more information.
“In all due respect to WGEA, it is difficult to respond to comments without more background,” Greenberg wrote.
“The fact is, during September, Canadian Pacific outperformed any previous CP empty order fulfillment as we work directly with our shippers in addressing their shipping needs.”
