Aussie dock pileup affects exports to RI

Aussie dock pileup affects exports to RI

SYDNEY (Agencies): With about 10,000 containers already banked up on Australia's battle scarred docks, the biggest crunch is about to hit as the peak shipping season for rural commodity exports begins.

Containerized exports of wool, cotton and meat, worth a combined annual total of about A$7.5 billion (US$4.9 billion), have so far partly avoided the logjam on Australia's docks by a combination of luck and crisis management.

Cotton, which supplies Southeast Asian mills, is just starting its shipping season.

Australia's cotton industry said the dispute is starting to bite, while the beef industry warned that if the dispute continues Australia's position as the world's leading beef exporter will be put at risk.

The Australian Cotton Industry Council said the dispute is starting to delay cotton shipments at a time when exports are peaking. Australia exports around US$120 million worth of cotton a year, and ships an average 300,000 bales a month between now and September.

The council said more than 300,000 bales of cotton exports a month, bound for Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, were at risk.

"In some cases mills in Asia will have to close as a result of non-delivery of Australian cotton," chairman of the Australian Cotton Industry Council, Peter Corish, said.

The Australian industry would face additional carrying charges of US$20 million a month and loss of contracts to the United States, West Africa and former Soviet Union countries.

Some cotton shipments, in an industry which exports 95 percent of annual produce worth more than A$1 billion a year, had already been delayed, Corish said.

"But the impact is just starting," he warned.

"We risk losing our short-transit time advantage on Southeast Asia, jeopardizing hard-won markets and tarnishing our good reputation if delays in delivery occur due to the current dispute," Council Chairman Peter Corish said.

The dispute -- which centers on the sacking by Patrick Stevedores of 1,400 unionized workers -- has seen union blockades of the company's terminals, stopping containers getting on to the docks.

Patrick's main rival P&O Ports has not been affected by the row and continues to move cargo.

Industry sources warned the effects of the dispute were set to spread far and wide.

Amid the chaos of the dock dispute, sources in the main commodity exporting industries were unable to quantify how much of their produce had built up on Australian docks, which have been closed by picketing Australian dock workers.

The pile of unshipped boxes on the docks are only the most obvious result of the wharf dispute, they say.

"There's this awful cloud hanging over our head because sales resume this week," a spokeswoman for the Australian Council of Wool Exporters said.

So far a reasonable amount of Australian wool exports had been getting through the ports. A typical case involved an exporter putting seven boxes forward for shipment, with five getting out and two caught up, the spokeswoman said.

It was not known how much of Australia's meat exports was held up at Australian ports, Peter Barnard, general manager policy, planning and public affairs of the Australian Meat and Livestock Corp said.