Five trucks wait their turn early this year to unload chickpeas for transfer on to a vessel at the Wagner’s wharf at Pinkenba, one of Brisbane’s four grain-export terminals. Photo: JSM Bulk Shipping
GRAIN storage and logistics company JSM Bulk Shipping and associated entity Rain-Ag Shipping Services have gone into liquidation, effective August 21.
Out of sites at Wellcamp, west of Toowoomba, and Myrtletown in Brisbane, JSM Bulk Shipping loaded 19 cargoes for various trading companies between commencing operations in June 2024 and its most recent vessel in March.
With Helios Advisory managing principal Declan Lane now appointed as liquidator, JSM Bulk Shipping is no longer in a position to continue handling grain or pulses grown in Queensland and northern New South Wales.
In contrast to last season, JSM Bulk Shipping principal Joel Englebrecht said a much more subdued outlook for grain and pulse exports had the company earlier this month looking at going into administration.
“There’s been no engagement with wheat, so no boats,” Mr Englebrecht said.
“Even now, there’s no engagement from growers and no trade; there’s no rush to get them booked.
“Last year there was pressure.”
This came from exporters scrambling to get chickpea cargoes to India in a tariff-free window, with JSM via the Wagner’s wharf at Pinkenba being one of four terminals in Brisbane exporting chickpeas at a record pace.
A decision was made last week to liquidate the company following a statutory demand from creditor Tasman Logistics.
JSM Bulk Shipping came into being last year when experienced road-transport operators Joel and his wife Sarah Englebrecht took over Rain-Ag Shipping Services, a spin-off of Rain Agribusiness.
As a creditor of Rain-Ag Shipping Services, JSM took on its own and other company’s debts by taking over the business.
“More or less, it was a hostile takeover without the hostility.”
It put JSM Bulk Shipping into the Rain-Ag Shipping Services sites and operations at Wagner Corporation’s Wellcamp Business Park, and a site owned by Daston at Myrtletown, near the Wagner’s wharf on the Brisbane River.
Chickpea bunkers filling at JSM’s accumulation and container-packing site at Wellcamp late last year ahead of export out of Brisbane. Photo: Amy Wells
Using 120,000 tonnes of bunker storage at Wellcamp, and 60,000t at Myrtletown, it enabled JSM to load two sorghum vessels that came on the books with the Rain-Ag Shipping Services buy, and then engage with further parties on chickpea, faba bean, and new sorghum business.
Parties the site accumulated for included Agrocorp, Arrow Commodities, Centre State Exports, ETG, and Robinson Grain.
The company’s shipping program finished in March with a sorghum vessel, and JSM has seen a drop-off in business since.
Mr Englebrecht said his first concern has been for the company’s 11 staff, and Wagner Corporation director Joe Wagner has offered to help them find roles.
“The relationship between us and Wagner’s is really healthy and…the support everywhere’s been amazing.”
That includes from Daston, as well as Wagner’s, which Mr Englebrecht said were JSM Bulk Shipping’s only secured creditors.
Tasman Logistics is a creditor of JSM Bulk Shipping through its work transferring grain and pulses in open-top containers from Wellcamp to Brisbane.
The liquidator has been contacted for further information.
The Wellcamp site was initially developed by Rain Agribusiness in 2023.
Its first intake was South Australian barley shipped to Brisbane by Quadra Commodities for sale into the regional feed market, and its export volume in early 2024 under RainAg was primarily chickpeas.
Grain Central understands the transfer of Rain-Ag Shipping Services to JSM Bulk Shipping was finalised in recent weeks, although JSM Bulk Shipping took over operations from July.
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