News

Hurricane Sally on path toward Gulf grain ports

Hurricane Sally is on a path toward the largest grain shipping region of the United States, in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mike Steenhoek with the Soy Transportation Coalition tells Brownfield Ag News they’re keeping a close eye on that path, “It looks like the area that will receive the most direct hit will be this Biloxi, Mississippi kind of area but New Orleans is very close to that and will certainly be in an area affected by this.”

While Hurricane Sally is expected to be a category 2, which refers to wind speeds, Steenhoek says they hope it’s not slow-moving like Hurricane Harvey, “We saw that a few years ago in Houston when you had a storm that just simply, after it made landfall, it just parked over the Houston area and dumped significant amounts of rainfall. And, that was the more consequential part of the hurricane versus the actual wind speed itself.”

The majority of U.S. soybeans and corn are shipped out of the New Orleans area ports. Steenhoek says 15 vessels left those ports just last week.

The previous Gulf storm, Hurricane Laura, bypassed the New Orleans area ports.