Australia diverts sheep ship carrying 60,000 live sheep!

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Australia diverts sheep ship, Gulf problems mount

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AUSTRALIA: March 25, 2003

 

 

SYDNEY - Australia's big livestock export trade is diverting a ship carrying

60,000 live sheep from some Gulf ports and is also being hit by rising

insurance costs as a U.S.-led war against Iraq accelerates, an industry body

said.

 

 

 

The ship, originally scheduled to unload at various ports around the Gulf,

is being diverted to Oman and the United Arab Emirates, industry marketing

concern Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) told Reuters on Monday.

 

" If it (the war) doesn't get over quickly or if problems erupt across the

region, it will start to make a difference (to the entire trade), " Mike

Hayward, general manager of MLA's overseas operations, told Reuters.

 

Australia, the largest livestock exporter in the world, ships around A$580

million ($343 million) worth of live slaughter animals to the Middle East

region a year, mainly involving 6.5 million sheep and almost 320,000 live

cattle.

 

No exports to Iraq have taken place since the Gulf War 12 years ago, but

Australia exports around 1.5 million live sheep a year to neighbouring

Kuwait and 1.9 million to Saudi Arabia.

 

The diversion was less problematical than war premiums on shipping

insurance, Hayward said.

 

War risk insurance premiums had sent freight costs for Australian livestock

and meat headed to the Middle East up by around eight percent in the last

couple of weeks as the conflict in Iraq came to a head.

 

Costs would rise further the longer the war went on, he said.

 

POST-WAR AMBITIONS

 

Some ports where Australia normally exported livestock to, most notably

Kuwait, were presently being totally utilised by armed forces. If the war

became protracted, this would eventually cause problems for the trade, he

said.

 

The Australian Quarantine & Inspection Service (AQIS) is issuing export

permits as normal for Australian livestock and meat bound for the Middle

East.

 

However, AQIS has put live exporters on notice that they should consider

each shipment carefully to ensure they would be able to be unloaded at their

destination, Hayward said.

 

The outbreak of fighting in Iraq had fortunately coincided with a

traditionally slow period for Australian livestock and meat shipments to the

Middle East after the Muslim Haj religious pilgrimage, Hayward said.

 

This has helped Australia's big livestock and meat export trade to the

Middle East so far escape major problems encountered by the country's bigger

wheat trade, which was scheduled to export one million tonnes of wheat to

Iraq in 2003.

 

Two wheat ships headed to the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr have been diverted to

Oman, at the entrance to the Gulf, while new shipments to Iraq have been

halted.

 

Like wheat, Australia's meat and livestock trade is looking for

opportunities in Iraq after the fighting ends.

 

" We're looking at it as an opportunity for the future when the country

(Iraq) is reconstructed, " Hayward said.

 

Deaths at sea of Australian livestock in recent years have aroused the ire

of global animal rights activists, who want an end to the trade.

 

 

Story by Michael Byrnes

 

 

 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE