Current season performance

2024 Season

The QCS Short Term Pool price received by Mackay growers is a weighted average of QCS-managed pools.

The Shared Pool return is generally applied to around 2–3% of QCS-nominated tonnage for the season, depending on US Quota entitlements allocated to QCS.

More about the Shared Pool price

As per the Mackay Sugar cane supply agreement, the QCS Shared Pool price is a combination of US Quota pricing and QCS costs.

To help you more easily compare GEI marketers, in addition to reporting the Shared Pool price in the way that the cane supply agreement requires, we also break the Shared Pool price down into US Quota pricing and QCS costs. QCS costs can be overall positive or negative, depending on the revenues and expenses for the season. When QCS costs are positive, they increase the net Shared Pool return.

As you can see from the above amounts, the QCS Shared Pool price as reported under the cane supply agreement is not calculated by adding the US Quota pricing and QCS costs together.

QCS costs (whether positive or negative) are applied to each tonne of sugar marketed by QCS, whereas US Quota pricing is only applied to the US Quota tonnes, which generally make up about 2–3% of total tonnage.

Why is the Shared Pool price so large?

From time to time, typically when the Thai crop is low, Australian sugar receives a significant premium over the ICE No.11 for sales into Asia. These regional premiums are paid through the Shared Pool, where they are applied to US Quota tonnes (the only sugar in the Shared Pool).  Because US Quota tonnes generally make up only 2–3% of total tonnage each season, premiums have a large impact on the Shared Pool price.

Forward pricing

The price a grower receives for forward pricing varies, dependent on the grower’s individual pricing decisions. The price is received in the season in which the sugar is produced and delivered, not the season in which it is forward priced.