The canola stack at Bunge’s Arthur River site in WA. Photo: Bunge

AUSTRALIA exported 12,012 tonnes of canola in September, the final month of its 2019-20 sales program, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

A bulk cargo to Japan accounted for nearly all of the September figure, and October shipments are likely to be containerised business only as bulk handlers and exporters switch focus to the new-crop shipping window.

Canola from the current harvest began to flow into CBH Group’s storages in Western Australia early last month, while deliveries of canola into storages in South Australia and New South Wales started in the middle of last month.

The first two 60,000t cargoes of Australian new-crop canola left CBH terminals in WA this week, and several more cargoes are due to load in coming weeks, with Europe the major market.

Table 1: Australian canola exports for July, August and September 2020. Source: ABS