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CBH opens Kwinana Fertiliser Facility

Grain Central, March 20, 2023

CBH chair Simon Stead, Federal Minister for Resources Madeleine King, WA Minister for Agriculture and Food Jackie Harvis, CBH CEO Ben Macnamara and CBH Fertiliser manager David Pritchard. Photo: Jackie Jarvis.

WESTERN Australia’s CBH Group has opened its new Kwinana Fertiliser Facility, which is expected to deliver significant benefits to WA grain growers.

The facility was officially opened on Friday by the WA Minister for Agriculture and Food Jackie Jarvis, Federal Minister for Resources Madeleine King, and CBH chair Simon Stead.

This project marks the start of CBH’s liquid fertiliser business and expands its granular fertiliser capacity by 15,000 tonnes.

Located adjacent to CBH’s Kwinana Grain Terminal, the new facility has capacity to store 32,000t of Urea Ammonium Nitrate (UAN) and 55,000t of bulk granular fertiliser.

Mr Stead said this was an exciting milestone, which will deliver significant value to the grain growers of Western Australia.

“CBH’s new Kwinana fertiliser facility provides a new liquid offering, and bolsters our granular offering, across a wider catchment for the benefit of all growers,” Mr Stead said.

“Ultimately, it enables us to reduce our handling and freight costs through efficiencies, which can be passed on to growers through competitive prices.

“Increasing our fertiliser storage capacity will also improve consistency of supply for growers when they need it most.”

Improved supply chain

Ms Jarvis said the new fertiliser capacity will “deliver greater flexibility to our grain growers” and allow them to buy competitively priced fertiliser when required.

“The investment is timely, with a recent ABARES report showing that despite a recent easing in input costs, fertiliser, fuel and freight costs remain relatively high in long-term averages,” Ms Jarvis said.

“CBH has worked creatively across the supply chain to create these efficiencies and opportunities that benefit our growers and the grains industry.”

CBH chief marketing and trading officer Jason Craig said the facility enables the growth of the co-operative’s fertiliser business in line with grower demand.

“CBH Fertiliser continues to experience year-on-year growth and out-turned a record 204,000t last year, our best result since entering the market in 2015,” Mr Craig said.

“Increasing the scale of our fertiliser business, and allowing for further expansion, reflects the ever-increasing demand for CBH fertiliser.

“It also supports CBH’s strategy target of holding a 15 percent market share in WA by 2033.”

CBH is expected to commence outloading UAN and granular fertiliser to WA growers next month.

Construction of the new facility, which commenced early last year, was completed by WA construction firm Kerman Contracting.

Source: CBH Group, WA Government

 

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