High barge freight keeps US corn and soybean CIF NOLA elevated

The US corn and soybean CIF market remained at higher levels Feb. 23, driven by elevated barge freight costs due to winter weather.

"High barge freight is still the main driver on the firmer CIF market," said a trader source from Ohio.

Platts assessed US Yellow Corn No. 2 CIF New Orleans barge basis for March shipment at 101 cents/bushel over the Chicago Board of Trade March (H) corn futures contract on Feb. 23, just 1 cent up from Feb. 2, but considerably higher compared to the 78 cents/bu from the 2025 assessment.

Meanwhile, for soybeans, on Feb. 2 Platts assessed the CIF NOLA basis for February shipment at 101 cents/bu, increasing to 109 cents/bu on Feb. 22. Platts assessed the basis for CIF NOLA for March shipment at 109 cents/bu over the March (H) soybeans futures contract on Feb. 23.

The source from Ohio said that despite better conditions across the Mississippi River Waterways, barge freight costs remained firm amid the corn and soybean crop moving from upriver to the US Gulf Coast for exports.

Barge freight rates for shipments to New Orleans in February remained unchanged week over week for barges loaded in St. Louis at 575%, while they were higher for barges loaded in the Lower Illinois docks at 725% and Ohio at 625%, according to data from American Commercial Barge Line.

"It's just working on catching up after the cold weather, with most of the Midwest having had a week or more of high temperatures, and it's no longer cold enough to freeze the rivers," said the source from Ohio.

With the river system now gradually resuming operations, there is a surge of grain waiting to be shipped.

"We have a lot of bushels trying to move through a river system that is getting back up to speed," said a broker from Illinois.

Meanwhile, a logistics source said that river conditions are slowly improving on the Illinois with the mild temperatures; however, they are starting to see lock delays increase as ice is flowing south.

"I think barge freight and CIF will stay a little elevated for the first half of the month but then should start to go lower," a trader in that market said on Feb. 2. "It's a matter of if there's enough barges in place to deal with the backlog of rail that needs to be unloaded and then things should start to normalize."

Sources said on Feb. 20 that the inability to move bushels via the river artery for three recent weeks has increased stocks of grain in the delivery system, and that exceptional weather has allowed for increased truck traffic, helping to alleviate some of the logistical bottlenecks on the river.