MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — Emerald Grain’s Melbourne Port Terminal is celebrating a major milestone this week after it clocked 10 million tonnes of grain exports since operations began in 2000, the company said on Dec. 3.

Emerald Grain Managing Director John Murray said the port had achieved strong throughput since Emerald took over operations in March 2012.

“The port has achieved around three million tonnes of exports in about two and half years,” he said, noting that increase was due to strategic investment and integration of businesses.“We have successfully integrated our marketing arm with the storage and port businesses to create more efficient pathways to market for growers and customers.

“We have built a new weighbridge, a state-of-the-art sample stand and new road hopper in order to speed up our road-intake capacity.

The port draws grain by road and rail from Emerald Grain’s 1.3 million tonnes of networked storage capacity throughout Victoria and New South Wales, along with third-party suppliers.

It exports to different destinations across Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East, with some cargoes going as far as the U.S.

Murray said although the team at the port had been busy unloading trains, packing containers and loading vessels with the output of this year’s harvest, they still found time to have a quick celebration on Tuesday with a specially made cake.

“We are really proud of what the team at the Terminal has achieved, and we are certainly on track to continue to improve throughputs and provide greater value to our export customers and our growers,” Murray said.