Logistics

JSM bulks up Australia’s chickpea-shipping capacity

Liz Wells January 16, 2025

Chickpea bunkers fill at JSM’s accumulation and container-packing site at Wellcamp which feeds the export supply chain out of Brisbane. Photo: Amy Wells

A BUMPER growing season and a tariff-free window for Australian chickpeas into India has sparked one of the biggest first-quarter bulk shipping programs for pulses ever seen out of Queensland and New South Wales ports.

Among those playing a major role in exporting the second-biggest chickpea crop ever grown in Queensland and northern NSW, as well as a big faba bean crop, is JSM Bulk Shipping.

Using its bunker sites at Wellcamp, west of Toowoomba, where 120,000t can be stored, plus a 60,000t site at Pinkenba, JSM’s trucks and sub-contractors are currently carting pulses to vessels coming into the Wagner Corporation wharf in Brisbane.

Founded on trucking know-how

JSM has a few trucks of its own, but relies primarily on sub-contractors picking up from farms as far afield as Clermont in Central Qld and Coonamble in New South Wales on behalf of trading companies shipping out of Pinkenba, or in containers packed at both JSM sites.

Registered in June 2024, JSM Bulk Shipping is owned and operated by Joel and Sarah Englebrecht.

Mr Englebrecht said establishment of the business was the natural progression for the couple’s JSM Bulk Carriers operation which contracted to, and then bought, RainAg’s shipping services division.

“We’ve got a team of 300-odd trucks that go from paddock to boat,” Mr Englebrecht said.

JSM accounts manager Taylor Batchelor and vessel operations manager Jak Glover with Joel and Sarah Englebrecht (right) on the Wagner’s berth at Pinkenba for the loading of JSM’s first bulk cargo, faba beans, which sailed for Egypt in November. Photo: JSM Bulk Shipping

JSM’s Wellcamp site is operating around the clock, and is leased within the Wagner Corporation’s Wellcamp Business Park.

It primarily receives deliveries coming in direct from farm by day, and outloads to Pinkenba at night.

The JSM supply chain can load up to four 30,000t vessels per month, although rain and shipping issues, which add a layer of complexity to the trucking side of the business, can make that hard to achieve.

“I’ve been in trucks for 15 years; Dad had trucks, and my grandfather had them too.

“Back when we had one truck, it was me in the seat, and Sarah on the books.”

JSM currently employs around 40 staff at its two sites, and Joel and Sarah’s experience in running a larger team has grown over recent years.

When drought gripped Qld and northern NSW from 2017 to 2019, the couple’s trucking business grew from its base in Goondiwindi to provide work for a large number of sub-contractors, as well as their own trucks.

The task saw Joel and Sarah and their children move to Brisbane to better service the demand for up-country haulage of interstate grain arriving by sea to help fill the wider region’s drought-driven grain deficit.

Through work with companies including East Coast Stevedoring and RainAg, JSM became Qld’s biggest single road-transport contractor on bulk grain.

When the drought broke, JSM was well placed to take part in the reversed supply chain, with bulk chickpeas to Pakistan off the Wagner’s berth a key commodity.

“From 2020 to 2023, we were 80pc of RainAg’s accumulation,” Mr Englebrecht said.

Midst of massive program

The Wagner’s wharf is one of four export points for chickpeas in Brisbane, with the most recent established at the nearby public wharf in Pinkenba late last year.

On the southern bank of the Brisbane River, Wilmar’s QBT is also busy on chickpeas, while downstream, GrainCorp’s Fisherman Islands terminal – the only one in Brisbane which can receive by rail – has also loaded a few cargoes.

In NSW, the port of Newcastle has played an important part in bulk export of chickpeas and faba beans since the shipping year kicked off on October 1, with GrainCorp’s Carrington site and Qube’s Newcastle Agri Terminal receiving by rail as well as road.

In a January 7 social media post, GrainCorp said it has completed a rail outload program from north-west NSW which has taken 75,000t of chickpeas to Carrington for export.

Latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows Australia exported 442,604t of chickpeas in November, including bulk out of the Central Qld ports of Gladstone and Mackay.

This is the highest monthly figure in years, and is expected to be repeated for December shipment before starting to taper off ahead of India’s scheduled end to its tariff-free period for Australian chickpeas on March 31.

While rain has interrupted the movement of pulses to vessel holds for JSM and others, it has also ensured a big and early sorghum crop which will hit the bins in the next week or two.

“With chickpeas, it’s all about getting it out fast, while export demand is strong.”

“Once chickpeas are over, vessels will move to wheat and sorghum, and that’s what our sites will be handling.”

ABARES’ most recent estimate for Australia’s 2024-25 chickpea crop pegged production at 1.9 million tonnes (Mt), up from 1.3Mt seen early in September, and behind only the record 2016-17 crop of 2Mt.

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