Central Florida: The Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic were socked with another heavy blanket of snow last week, while much of the South received rain, which was heavy in some cases. The precipitation reduced the amount of area classified as abnormally dry in the Eastern U.S., with the exception of Virginia and the Carolinas.
The good news was that the harvest was finished before the hard weather hit. Cold was the rule for most of the country last week, with the exception of Florida, where temperatures were running about 10 degrees above normal.
The Central Florida phosphate market continued to be quiet last week. The DAP price remained flat $345/st FOB, with MAP bringing a $20/st premium over DAP in the Central Florida market.
U.S. Gulf: Phosphate has become a scarce commodity recently, and that will probably not change until early January. The scarcity was due in part to a heavy export schedule and fewer vessels arriving with imported OCP product this month.
Several sources said terminals in the Midwest were nearly empty in terms of DAP and MAP. “We’re going hand-to-mouth” on phosphates, as one put it.
NOLA DAP and MAP barges moved relatively well last week. A number of sellers were reportedly moving multiple barges, and at significantly higher prices than the previous week, when Koch was said to be the biggest buyer.
Meanwhile, barge traffic on the Mississippi River was slowed by low water last week, and that will likely continue for several weeks. Low water on the mid-Mississippi near Thebes, Ill., was the bottleneck, and the Army Corps of Engineers was working to remove rocks from the channel to avoid dangers to navigation during the low-water period. Traffic will be restricted initially to one-way and a limit of 15 barges to a tow with “no wake” restrictions, the Corps said. In addition, the channel may be shut down at times.
USDA said Argentina was poised to make a record harvest of soybeans, and that did not help the price of soybeans on the futures market. That weakness also spilled over to corn futures, especially after legislation was introduced in the Senate to eliminate the ethanol mandate for gasoline.
The 4 p.m. Thursday snapshot of the futures market showed corn, soybean, and wheat prices all down from the previous week. The exception was corn for March 2014, which moved up late in the day to $4.3425/bushel, just slightly higher than the previous week’s $4.335/bushel. The May 2014 corn price was $4.425/bushel, while trading of December 2014 corn contracts checked in at $4.615/bushel, down slightly from the previous week’s $4.625/bushel.
The January 2014 price of soybeans was $13.2375/bushel, down from the previous week’s $13.28/bushel, while the March 2014 soybean price slipped to $13.1175/bushel from $13.28/bushel a week earlier. The soybean price for November 2014 was posted at $11.5825/bushel, also lower than the prior week’s $11.63/bushel.
Wheat for March 2014 was $6.7825/bushel, down from the previous week’s $6.9525/bushel, while wheat for May 2014 slipped to $6.82/bushel from $6.95/bushel one week earlier. The July 2015 price of wheat was $6.9275/bushel, down from the previous reporting period’s price of $6.9875/bushel.
Phosphate prices at terminals and at NOLA were on the rise last week. The NOLA DAP barge price came in at $338-$360/st FOB based on actual trades, compared with the previous week’s range of $325-$340/st FOB. Paper offers for January were running as high as $364/st FOB.
NOLA MAP barges were thinly traded last week, with sources reporting a range of $365-$370/st FOB.
Eastern Cornbelt: DAP pricing had reportedly firmed to $380-$385/st FOB Cincinnati, up roughly $15/st from the previous week. The high end of the regional DAP market was pe