There's been a definite increase in grain moving to market as farmers look to clear out bin space for the new harvest.
Elizabeth Hucker, the assistant vice-president of sales and marketing for bulk with CPKC says in grain shipping week #51 they moved just shy of 400,000 metric tonnes to Vancouver, Thunder Bay, Eastern Canada, the United States and to Mexico all out of Western Canada.
She notes back to around week #49 they were shipping around that 400,000 metric tonne level, adding that movement is stronger than what we would normally see this time of the year.
"It was definitely a slow start to shipping for this crop year, and we didn't see the normal peaks that we would see with strong shipping demand through that October to December last year."
She says in their Grain Service Outlook Report last year, they went to the government and talked about the capacity they had for shipping Canadian Grain.
"I think it's fair to say that throughout the crop year other than a couple of these peaks we were well under capacity."
Hucker notes there's still some question about what we'll see as far as overall crop carryover.
With the new crop year beginning August 1st, CPKC is turning its 2024-25 Grain Service Outlook Report into the Federal Government, which outlines the company's plan to move the new crop to market.
"That report is based on a lot of work that we do internally at CPKC in reviewing the expectations of our customers, as well as crop size assumptions, and our plans to supply the rail capacity to transport the crop throughout the whole crop year to the key markets like Vancouver and Thunder Bay."
Hucker says they are very excited as they look to close out the 2023-24 crop year and are ready to go for 2024-25.
"We're staying close with our customers to understand the size of the crop and the yield that might be coming off, or how it might have been impacted with some of the recent heat.
We're doing everything we can to get ready as far as prespots and staying close with customers on their forecast."