This article has been reprinted from the July 3 USDA Grain Transportation Report.

Export Sales

For the week ending June 20, unshipped balances of wheat, corn, and soybeans totaled 22.4 mmt.

This denotes a 14 percent decrease in outstanding sales, compared to the same time last year.

Net corn export sales reached .295 mmt, up significantly from the previous week.

Net soybean export sales totaled .149 mmt, down 74 percent from the past week.

Net weekly wheat export sales reached .612 mmt, up 226 percent from the previous week.

Rail

U.S. Class I railroads originated 22,794 grain carloads for the week ending June 22.

This is a 2 percent increase from the previous week, 5 percent lower than last year, and unchanged from the 3-year average.

Average July shuttle secondary railcar bids/offers (per car) were $95 below tariff for the week ending June 27.

This is $295 less than last week and $549 lower than last year.

Average non-shuttle secondary railcar bids/offers were $125 above tariff, $17 more than last week.

There were no non-shuttle bids/offers this week last year.

Barge

For the week ending June 29, barge grain movements totaled 739,788 tons.

This is a 358 percent increase from the previous week and 20 percent lower than the same period last year.

For the week ending June 29, 469 grain barges moved down river.

This is 378 more barges than the previous week.

There were 373 grain barges unloaded in New Orleans, 41 percent more than the previous week.

Ocean

For the week ending June 27, 21 ocean-going grain vessels were loaded in the Gulf.

This is 34 percent fewer than the same period last year.

Forty-five vessels are expected to be loaded within the next 10 days.

This is 13 percent more than the same period last year.

As of June 27, the rate for shipping a metric ton (mt) of grain from the U.S. Gulf to Japan was $43.00.

This is 1 percent more than the previous week.

The rate from the Pacific Northwest to Japan was $23.75 per mt; unchanged from the previous week.

Fuel

For the week ending July 1, the U.S. average diesel fuel price decreased 0.1 cents from the previous week, to $3.042 per gallon.

This price is 19.4 cents less than the same week last year