Australia's wheat exports remain on course to set a record in 2011-12 after near-doubling in November – with the top grain state still in low gear - and with canola and cotton shipments picking up too.

The southern hemisphere's top wheat exporter shipped 1.8m tonnes of the grain in November, keeping shipments on track to beat last season's 18.4m tonnes, itself a historically-high figure.

Abares, Australia's crop bureau, believes shipments will hit 20.9m tonnes in 2011-12, beating the current record of 19.2m tonnes set 15 years ago.

And a bumper crop in Western Australia, the country's top-ranked grain exporting state, has yet to make itself felt in exports, with shipments flat in November compared with the same month of 2010, when trade was curtailed by a drought-affected harvest.

CBH Group, the main crop handler for Western Australia, said last week that its grain receivals from the nearly-finished harvest were on track to hit 13.5m tonnes, a figure second only to the 14.7m tonnes recorded eight seasons ago, and nearly twice last season's harvest.

However, Western Australia shipments should show a "step up" in December and January as new crop supplies are delivered to export terminals, Australia & New Zealand Bank analyst Paul Deane said.

'Strong shipping programme'

The rise in Australian wheat shipments in November was led by South Australia, typically a smaller producer, but where crops have been favoured over the last two seasons by La Nina-inspired rains.

"South Australia's export pace in the first two months of the 2011-12 marketing year broke all records," Mr Deane said, with the figure topping 1m tonnes, on Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates.

Viterra, the state's main grain exporter, has repeatedly flouted a "strong export shipping programme", and will give further details in results on January 18.

Oilseed swell

However, the strong Western Australian harvest has already made itself felt in canola, the rapeseed variant which is reaped earlier than wheat, and of which the state's shipments more than doubled to 121,000 tonnes in November.

All but a handful of the shipments were destined for the European Union, whose own crop of rapeseed suffered a second poor season.

"This initial pace of Western Australia canola exports remains consistent with our view that Western Australia will achieve over 1m tonnes of exports, for the full 2011-12, a 75% increase year on year," Mr Deane said.

'Easily surpassed previous records'

In cotton, grown in the main in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia's total shipments hit 430,000 bales in November, taking the total for 2011-12 season, which for the fibre starts in April, to 3.45m bales.

"Australia has easily surpassed all previous records for cotton exports," Mr Deane said.

China, the world's biggest cotton importer, has been the biggest buyer, taking 2.2m bales so far – more than double the purchases from Australia at this stage in any previous season.

With Australia's total cotton output last year at 4m bales, and little in the way of carryover stocks from 2010-11, "Australia should have little cotton remaining to export past the end of this month", Mr Deane said.