Egypt’s GASC back for March wheat as board turns red

Egyptian state buyer GASC returned to the market late Thursday to take advantage of falling global cash and futures prices, looking to buy milling wheat for March delivery, market sources told Agricenus.

The optional origin tender from the world's largest wheat buyer is for cargoes to be delivered March 21-31, with a deal expected to be agreed Friday.

It comes as global futures slumped 2.5% on Thursday as sentiment turned negative, while offers for March 12.5% protein milling wheat from Russia – GASC’s biggest supplier – were down $2/mt to $246/mt FOB.

With tightening global supply well-flagged, GASC appeared to have made the decision to return even as its officials were quoted earlier in the week as saying there was enough stock on hand to last until June.

At its previous tender on January 29, GASC booked 360,000 mt of French- and Romanian-origin wheat for delivery March 11-20, paying $262.77/mt CFR.

Full details of GASC’s previous buying can be found on the Tenders Dashboard.