MarketsFarm — So far this winter grain movement in Canada has yet to incur few — if any — major problems that have stymied rail shipments, according to Mark Hemmes, president of Quorum Corp., which tracks rail movement in Canada.
Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway (CP, CN) have been doing good jobs during the 2022-23 marketing year in moving grain, he said.
“They have benefitted by one of those years where they’re really enjoying a calamity-free year. We don’t have floods. We don’t have blockades. We don’t have massive derailments. We’ve had a reasonably mild winter,” he said.
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At 2.29 million tonnes, CP set a new January record for grain movement, according to a press statement recently issued by the company. CP said it has transported more than 15 million tonnes of grain and grain products so far during the marketing year.
“CP’s grain performance through January demonstrates the strength of our customers’ supply chains, and the strong resiliency of our railway operations and effective winter planning, allowing CP to deliver for our customers,” Joan Hardy, CP’s vice-president, sales and marketing, grain and fertilizers said.
“CP, our customers and other supply chain participants were able to ship nearly double the volume of grain and grain products compared to January 2022, despite slowed grain vessel loading because of rain in Vancouver, holiday closures and periods of extreme winter operating conditions.”
Hemmes pointed to a few days in which rain along the West Coast hampered grain movement. Hardy cited the same issue and called on the federal government and industry to upgrade grain facilities at the Port of Vancouver.
Wade Sobkowich of the Western Grain Elevator Association (WGEA) also commented on CP’s record January.
“It’s a supply chain achievement. It’s always a good thing when the railways talk of how well they’ve done,” he said.
“The thing to keep in mind is it’s one thing to measure yourself on absolute volumes, based on how well you have done in the past. The other dimension to performance is measuring yourself against demand,” Sobkowich said, stressing it’s important to compare the amount of grain moved to the amount demanded from customers.
“We’ve seen CP in the 70 to 80 per cent car fulfillment, which is a satisfactory number,” he noted, pointing to the recent cold spate across the Prairies, which he said very likely slowed producer deliveries of grain, operations at grain elevators and rail movement throughout the region.
The Canadian Grain Commission reported that halfway through the 2022-23 crop year that producer deliveries of 34.02 million tonnes of all grains were up almost 33 per cent compared to a year ago. Also, terminal receipts of 28.91 million tonnes increased by 35.7 per cent. As well, total exports jumped 45.4 per cent at just under 24.90 million tonnes.
CN hasn’t released Canadian grain traffic data for January. In its year-end financials on Jan. 24, it mentioned relatively higher volumes of Canadian grain in its fourth quarter ending Dec. 31. CN also noted “significantly lower” export volumes of Canadian grain during the first half of calendar 2022 had partly offset its increased coal and U.S. grain traffic.
CN, in its Q4 results released Jan. 31, reported moving 192,000 carloads in its combined grain and fertilizers segment during the quarter ending Dec. 31, up 21 per cent from the year-earlier period. By comparison, CP handled 126,700 carloads in its grains segment, up 24.3 per cent from the year-earlier Q4.
— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.
