News

High water causing export delays

High water on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers has barge shipping at a standstill, causing problems for the export market.

“Really, from north to south there has been no barge activity. Loaded barges can’t go south, empty barges can’t go north. It’s pretty much a standstill.”

Brian Burke is a commodity broker with John Stewart and Associates in St. Louis. He tells Brownfield high waters have slowed exports, but the impact has been smaller than usual because of higher export competition from Brazil and Argentina.

“Typically, this time of year we have a strong export program but this year we are slowing down pretty substantially. So, the impact of backing up vessels and messing up the timing of a large program really isn’t the case this year.”

Burke says with more rain expected in the next two weeks it is difficult to make future export offers because barge availability is unknown.