US corn farmers hit with fuel shortages, high costs

By Rebekah Kebede

NEW YORK, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Fuel shortages in the U.S. Midwest are raising concerns corn farmers may have trouble harvesting their bumper crop this autumn.

Farmers planted the largest corn crop since 1944 last spring after prices hit a 10-year high of $4.37 a bushel in early 2007. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated a record crop of more than 13 billion bushels.

But farmers said supplies of the ultra low sulfur diesel needed for harvesting equipment are running low, particularly in the corn-growing regions of Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa.

In Iowa, fuel shortages are anticipated as retailers report having only about 80 percent of their normal supply, said John Scott, a corn and soy farmer in west central Iowa.

"Worse case scenario is our crop stands in the field until we have fuel to harvest it," said Scott, who has stored about one week's supply of fuel in anticipation of shortages, but not enough to tide him over for the six-week harvest season.

Curt Watson, the President of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, said the fuel terminal that usually supplies his area is dry. His supplier has to drive to another area, where long lines with a wait of four hours are not uncommon.

Experts blame a variety of refinery outages for the short supply, including a wave of maintenance shutdowns coinciding with peak harvest season from mid-September through October.

"That basically created a pulldown of inventories, more so than usual, before we entered the (harvesting) season," said Joanne Shore, an oil market analyst with the U.S. Energy Information Administration.