ABB loads first South Australian export barley of season

ABB expected to begin loading the first feed barley shipment from South Australia’s recent harvest at Port Adelaide last night, as ABB Grain began its export shipping program for 2008, the agribusiness said yesterday (Tuesday, January 8). The Cosco HK Shipping-managed, 1994-built bulk carrier, Full Strong, will initially take about 35,000 tonnes destined for Saudi Arabia as part of ABB’s five-year, $1bn contract to supply the United Feed Co. After being part-loaded at Port Adelaide, the Full Strong will later this week be topped up at Port Lincoln before sailing for the Middle East laden with a total of 60,500 tonnes of barley. ABB marketing general manager Peter Jones said the completion later this year of ABB’s $115m deep draught grain terminal at Outer Harbor will make part-loading of ships largely obsolete. &#8220This is the first feed barley shipment from South Australia this season and the first under the deregulated barley market,&#8221 Mr Jones said. &#8220Obviously it’s far more efficient to load this from just one port, but at Port Adelaide we’ve been limited by the shallow draught. &#8220However, when Outer Harbor is commissioned later this year we’ll able to fully load panamax-size vessels, greatly speeding up vessel turnaround and providing savings in two-port loading costs and blue water sea freight costs that will benefit growers and grain marketers.&#8221 Just before Christmas, ABB also made SA’s first bulk export shipment of new season malting barley under the deregulated market when 5,000 tonnes of grain was loaded aboard the Spliethoff’s-managed 1994-built general cargoship Erasmusgracht at Wallaroo, destined for Taiwan. ABB Grain was responsible for chartering and loading in-port both the Full Strong and the Erasmusgracht.

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