US Gulf FOB corn and soyabean basis offers were steady on Tuesday, with high water on the Mississippi River near the Gulf coast slowing barge traffic. "The high water at the Gulf is making it dangerous for barge tows to move at regular speed," a trader said, adding that some grain loading operations were also slowed.
Although there was a lack of fresh export demand for both corn and soyabeans, exporters are busy loading vessels for cargoes they have already sold for February shipment.
Traders said the lock and dam at Belleville on the Ohio River had its first full day of operations on Tuesday after being closed since early this month when a tugboat and six coal barges sank near there in an accident.
The traders said at least two dozen tugboats and their barges were waiting to move northward from the lock, with a similar number waiting to head southward.
Barge freight on the lower Ohio River had been supported by a lack of empty vessels, many of which were stranded at the Belleville lock and dam, the traders added.
But on Tuesday, freight rates on the lower Ohio River for this week shipment dropped 20 percentage points.
Hard and soft red winter wheat basis offers were steady, but SRW values in the CIF barge market - which supplies exporters at the Gulf - were weaker amid a lack of demand.
"There's not much export demand, and people have also largely covered their shorts for now," a trader said.
"But this market could just pop back up," he said, adding that supplies of quality old-crop SRW wheat remained tight.
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