US FOB Gulf corn basis offers were mostly steady on Monday, while soyabeans were lower amid sluggish export demand, traders said.
Barge freight bids for this week were higher on the lower Mississippi River, lower Ohio River and Illinois River, rebounding from losses last week, traders said.
The traders said there was a pick up in grain movement after a good harvest weekend, and that supplies of empty barges were beginning to tighten.
Soybean basis offers were lower, weighed by the sluggish pace of export demand, traders said.
"There is nothing going on at the Gulf," a trader said, of the thin export demand. He added that the pace of buying by China had slowed, while interest from Europe was thin.
"China had been buying one to two cargoes, but the pace has slowed in the past two weeks," he said, adding that the spread of bird flu in China was an emerging concern.
Another trader said China had bought large quantities of soyameal from India and soyabeans from South America. "They seemed to have overbought," he added.
Traders said corn basis offers were mostly steady, with export demand mostly from regular buyers.
Traders in both the corn and soyabean markets continued to monitor developments in the spread of bird flu, saying that feed demand from Asia and eastern Europe could decline if poultry in the two regions are culled in large numbers.
Hard and soft red winter wheat basis values were mostly steady, but fresh demand was thin, traders said.
There was no USDA confirmation of the sale of 1 million tonnes of US wheat to Iraq. A senior Iraqi trade official said last week Iraq bought the wheat from Columbia Grain and Louis Dreyfus at $190 per tonne FOB for arrival from December.
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