More grain terminals found damaged by Ida, exports may stall for weeks

By Karl Plume and PJ Huffstutter

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Grain shippers on the U.S. Gulf Coast reported more damage from Hurricane Ida to their terminals on Wednesday as Cargill Inc confirmed damage to a second facility, while power outages across southern Louisiana kept all others shuttered.

Global grains trader Cargill Inc said its Westwego, Louisiana, terminal was damaged by Hurricane Ida, days after confirming more extensive damage at its only other Louisiana grain export facility located in Reserve.

Hurricane Ida, which roared ashore on Sunday, has disrupted grain and soybean shipments from the Gulf Coast, which accounts for about 60% of U.S. exports, at a time when global supplies are tight and demand is strong from China.

Emergency authorities were still surveying the destruction, as numerous barges and boats were sunk in the lower Mississippi River while other debris has obstructed the navigation channel, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The major shipping waterway remains closed to vessel traffic from the Louisiana-Mississippi border to the Gulf of Mexico, shipping sources said.

Mike Strain, commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, saw scores of barges and at least five ships grounded during a flyover of the river.

He said the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard anticipate getting the upper Mississippi, from Baton Rouge on northward, “opened up by later today so we can start moving ships.”

The Army Corps of Engineers did not immediately respond to request for comment.

On the lower Mississippi, authorities aim to reopen the section from Nine Mile Point and down in seven days, Strain said.

“There are still transmission lines in the river, and those need to be removed before there can be safe passage,” Strain said. He said low water levels were making it harder to get stuck ships and barges moving again.

Cargill is still assessing the extent of the damage and does not yet know how soon its grain loading and shipping operations at the busiest U.S. grains port may resume, Cargill spokeswoman April Nelson said.

Rival exporter CHS Inc is diverting its export shipments scheduled through the next month through its Pacific Northwest terminal as the hurricane knocked out a transmission line that powers its lone Gulf Coast facility, the company said.

Other shippers, including Bunge Ltd and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co are still assessing damage to their locations, although all are still without power, the companies said.

Power may not be restored for weeks.

(Reporting by Karl Plume and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Trump administration rolls back U.S. inspection rules for egg products

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Wednesday it will stop requiring U.S. plants that produce egg products to have full-time government inspectors, in the first update of inspection methods in 50 years.

Under a new rule that takes effect immediately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow companies like Cargill Inc and Sonstegard Foods to use different food-safety systems and procedures designed for their factories and equipment.

The change marks the Trump administration’s latest move to ease government regulations over the nation’s food system. Some inspectors and public-interest groups have warned food safety may suffer as a result.

The new rule affects 83 plants that USDA has been inspecting, according to the agency. USDA will also assume oversight from the Food and Drug Administration of additional facilities that produce egg substitutes.

Inspectors will visit plants once per shift, instead of being there whenever egg products are being processed.

The change, first proposed in 2018, makes inspections consistent with those for meat and poultry products, said Paul Kiecker, administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Inspectors will operate under a “patrol” system, in which they will cover multiple plants each day, he said.

“We feel very confident that, based on the once per shift that we have them there, we’ll still be able to verify that they’re producing safe product,” he said.

Environmental group Food & Water Watch said in 2018 the patrol system may make inspections less effective.

The new rule aims to make better use of inspectors and allow companies to develop new food-safety procedures, Kiecker said.

Companies must implement standard operating procedures for sanitation and food-safety management systems known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.

“We are giving them more of the responsibility to ensure that they are producing safe products,” Kiecker said.

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted egg product sales this spring, as closures of restaurants, schools and offices reduced demand.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Tom Brown)

Major grain traders face one-two punch from U.S. floods, trade war

Water stands next to a field of crops near Putnam County, Illinois, U.S. July 5, 2019. Picture taken July 5, 2019. REUTERS/Stephanie Kelly

By Karl Plume

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Severe U.S. weather likely dented earnings for large grain companies including Archer Daniels Midland Co and Bunge Ltd for a second straight quarter, adding to headwinds from a still-unresolved U.S.-China trade war, analysts and economists said.

ADM and Bunge, as well as peers Cargill Inc and Louis Dreyfus Co, known as the ABCD quartet of global grain trading giants, faced processing-plant downtime, rail, and barge shipping delays and other supply uncertainty this spring as historic floods ravaged the central United States.

The weather woes are heaping more pain on the battered U.S. agricultural sector already hard-hit by a years-long crop supply glut and the U.S.-China trade war now entering its second year. The tariffs China imposed on soybean exports from the United States in retaliation for U.S. duties on Chinese goods curbed shipments of the most valuable U.S. export crop.

The excessive rains and flooding could also have a lasting impact on the grain merchants, whose latest round of quarterly earnings will start this week. ADM and Cargill are viewed as particularly vulnerable due to their outsized U.S. footprints. Reduced U.S. corn and soybean plantings will likely cut available crop supplies in the United States, potentially driving up raw material costs and squeezing margins.

“They thrive on volumes and margins and both of those are going to be depressed in the coming year with the bushels being smaller and the margins likely not being there,” said Kevin McNew, chief economist with Farmers Business Network. “Export business is just going to fall off the cliff, especially for corn.”

The U.S. corn crop was more affected by floods than soybeans because soy can be planted later in the season.

FILE PHOTO: A flooded parcel of land along the Platte River is pictured in this aerial photograph at La Platte, south of Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Drone Base/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A flooded parcel of land along the Platte River is pictured in this aerial photograph at La Platte, south of Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Drone Base/File Photo

WEAKER RESULTS

The first of the companies scheduled to report is privately held Cargill, which announces fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday.

The results will cover the March-to-May period, when flooding disrupted grain movement, including export shipments, and the year’s second “bomb cyclone” blizzard temporarily shuttered at least six Cargill grain handling facilities and a beef processing plant.

Cargill and ADM both own barge companies that haul grain and other products on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Grain barge movement so far this year is down about 37% from a year ago, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers data, due largely to prolonged river closures triggered by floods.

Cargill is expected to report weaker results compared with the very strong earnings of the year-ago quarter, due partly to expected lower profit in its origination and processing unit, said Bill Densmore, senior director of corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings.

Bunge and ADM will follow, with second-quarter results covering April, May and June scheduled for release on July 31 and Aug. 1, respectively. Privately held Louis Dreyfus is expected to issue interim first-half results in the autumn.

Shares of publicly traded ADM and Bunge are hovering just above three-year lows notched this spring as mounting concerns about U.S. plantings and trade fueled investor nervousness.

FILE PHOTO: Flooded farm fields are seen from an aerial photo taken while Nebraska Army National Guard Soldiers used a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to deliver multiple bales of hay to cattle isolated by historic flooding in Richland, Nebraska, U.S., March 20, 2019. Picture taken on March 20, 2019. Courtesy Lisa Crawford/Nebraska National Guard/Handout via REUTERS

FILE PHOTO: Flooded farm fields are seen from an aerial photo taken while Nebraska Army National Guard Soldiers used a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to deliver multiple bales of hay to cattle isolated by historic flooding in Richland, Nebraska, U.S., March 20, 2019. Picture taken on March 20, 2019. Courtesy Lisa Crawford/Nebraska National Guard/Handout via REUTERS

UNEVEN IMPACTS

With its concentration of assets in the United States and its large U.S. ethanol business, ADM was likely hit harder by adverse U.S. weather than Bunge, analysts said.

ADM cited poor U.S. weather for a nearly $60 million drop in operating profit in its first quarter and warned in April that lingering weather impacts would cut second-quarter earnings by $20 million to $30 million. Some analysts expect ADM to post as large a hit to second-quarter earnings as in the first quarter as adverse weather stretched through the spring season.

“ADM’s first-quarter estimate of $50-60 million seems like a good starting point” for the second-quarter impact, said Seth Goldstein, analyst with Morningstar.

ADM’s soy processing, ethanol and sweeteners and starches units may post lower margins, and smaller corn and soybean crops will hurt its grain origination business, said Heather Jones, founder and senior analyst with Heather Jones Research LLC.

The price of corn, the most common feedstock for U.S. ethanol makers, has surged as U.S. farmers struggled to plant the 2019 crop due to a historically soggy spring. Cash corn premiums in parts of the eastern Midwest, where planting delays were most acute, are at a six-year high. Soybean prices hit a one-year top last week.

“Bunge is less exposed, but higher bean costs would squeeze soy crush margins in the U.S.,” Jones said. Bunge is the world’s largest soybean processor.

(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Matthew Lewis)