World Grain - June 2013 - 17

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Bunge putting money behind ports
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S. — With
Bunge Ltd.’s portion of the global grain
trade increasing, the company is investing
significantly in the grain business, particularly in ports around the world, said Drew
Burke, chief financial officer.
In a May 15 presentation at the BMO Farm
to Market Conference in New York, Burke said
ports are often the bottleneck in origination.
“To be very effective in the grain business, we feel you need to have ports, so you
can control your own destiny and make sure
you have access to get it out and being most
cost efficient,” he said.
In the U.S., Bunge has invested in a major
port in Longview, Washington, U.S. It is part
of EGT Development, LLC, a joint venture
formed in 2009 with ITOCHU and STX Pan
Ocean. Bunge owns just over 50% of the
joint venture. The port has annual capacity
of 8 million tonnes.
“For the first time, in the fourth quarter of
2013, it will probably be able to run at capacity for a period of time, assuming we do get
large North American crops,” Burke said of
the port in Longview.
Elsewhere, a port facility acquired in
Ukraine in February 2011 “has been very
successful since we acquired it,” Burke said.

“It has a 3-million-tonne capacity and
gives us the ability to originate in the Black
Sea region and export through our own terminals instead of having to rely on public
terminals,” he said.
Australia stands out as a country where
Bunge “should be a bigger player,” Burke
acknowledged.

“We’ve been a player in it through using
public ports for a long time, but now we’ve
decided that to be competitive and efficient for
the long term we do need our own ports in Australia,” he said. “We’ve announced a project in
Bunbury to have our first port operational. And
that should be operational in 2014, and we
would look to expand on that afterwards.”

Wilmar earnings up 23%
on oilseeds, grains
SINGAPORE — Wilmar International
Limited said on May 8 that net profit for the
first quarter increased 23% to $315.4 million due to a sharp recovery in its oilseeds
and grain business.
Excluding non-operating items, the
group’s net profit registered robust growth
of 53% to $313.7 million in the quarter
compared to $205.6 million for the same
quarter a year earlier. Last year, non-operating items benefited from higher gains from
investment securities.
Oilseeds & Grains registered an increase
of 6% in sales volume to 4.7 million tonnes
due to increased demand for Wilmar’s
products. The group recorded a strong pretax profit of $47.2 million, a sharp reversal from the losses in the first quarter of
2012. The better performance was due to
improved margins in soybean crushing and
flour milling. The positive crush margins
during the quarter were a result of lower
cost of imported soybeans and higher local
product prices, due to late arrival of soybeans in China.
www.World-Grain.com / World Grain / June 2013

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World Grain - June 2013

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