CIF wheat basis bids and FOB basis offers were quietly unchanged. Barge freight rates jumped on Friday as low water on the lower Mississippi River near Memphis prompted shippers to reduce barge drafts and as locking delays on the Illinois and lower Ohio rivers slowed navigation, industry sources said. An accelerating Midwest harvest also boosted demand for empty vessels, further lifting prices, they said. Spot barge freight rates on the Mississippi River at St. Louis and on the lower Ohio River jumped 100 percentage points of tariff on Friday, while spot rates on the Illinois River rose 60 points.
The US Department of Agriculture on Friday confirmed private sales of 132,000 tonnes of US soybeans to China for 2017/18 shipment. The agency has reported nearly 1.25 million tonnes of new-crop soybean sales to China, Mexico and unknown destinations over the past six trading days. Soy barges loaded in the first half of September were bid 55 cents a bushel above Chicago Board of Trade November futures after trading as high as 70 cents over futures earlier in the week. FOB basis offers for soybeans loaded in October and November were around 70 cents a bushel over futures.
Bids for early September CIF corn barges were flat at 14 cents above the CBOT December futures contract, the lowest spot CIF basis since December 2009. Spot FOB offers were about 40 cents over futures. September barges of soft red winter wheat were bid around 35 cents over CBOT December futures and spot FOB offers at the Gulf were about 75 cents over December futures. CIF hard red winter wheat bids were 150 cents over the K.C. December contract for 12-percent protein grain. FOB basis offers for October vessels were around 185 cents over futures.
Copyright Reuters, 2017