US FOB Gulf corn offers were higher on Thursday amid some export interest in smaller cargoes, while soyabeans were steady in a quiet market. Traders said offers for hard and soft red winter wheat were mostly steady with little demand ahead of the New Year's holiday weekend.
Corn offers rose about a penny per bushel, despite early morning farmer selling. Sales stopped when CBOT corn futures dropped sharply at midday. There was talk that some Central and South American buyers were looking for small, mixed cargoes of corn, wheat and by-products, traders said.
Soyabean offers were unchanged after a flat day in the CIF market, which supplies grain export terminals at the Gulf Coast.
"There's nothing going on in our market," said a soyabean trader. "I hope it picks up, but it doesn't look promising at this point." Export prices were helped by CBOT soyabeans falling more than 13 cents per bushel, or $5 per tonne, on reports of better crop weather in the soyabean-producing regions of Argentina.
But Argentine soya prices fell a similar amount, keeping US soyabeans at a disadvantage for many buyers. Barge freight has dropped recently and fell further on Thursday, putting the CIF market under pressure.
Barge freight on the lower Ohio River traded at 390 to 400 percent of tariff, down from 400 to 415 percent on Wednesday, a barge operator said.
Barges traded at 425 percent on the Illinois River, down five points from Wednesday. Barges on the Mississippi River at St. Louis were bid at 390 percent, down from 400 percent on Wednesday, the barge operator said.
In export news, China's grain output rose about 3 percent in 2005, but the country still faces deficits in wheat, rice and soyabean supplies in 2006, Beijing officials said.
China will have to import about 8.0 million tonnes of wheat and 20 million tonnes of soyabeans in 2006 while it has overabundance of corn.
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