Egypt's GASC buys 360k mt Black Sea wheat at $360.12/mt

Egypt's state grain importer has booked 360,000 mt of Russian, Romanian and Ukrainian milling wheat for December 1-10 shipment paying $359.94/mt CFR and $327.98/mt FOB on average, trade sources said Wednesday.

The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) secured 60,000 mt Russian wheat from GTCS paying $356.50/mt CFR and $327/mt FOB and two  60,000 mt parcels from Solaris, both at $361/mt CFR and $328.36/mt FOB.

Viterra will deliver 60,000 mt of Romanian wheat, sold at $328.36/mt FOB Constanta and $359.86/mt CFR.

Finally, Nibulon sold a panamax of Ukrainian wheat at $327.50/mt FOB Ochakov and $360.45/mt CFR, while Olam chipped in with a second Ukrainian cargo sold at $361.90/mt CFR and $328.70/mt FOB.

The payment was at sight.

Trade sources said that GASC had tried to further discount at least three of the offers, but the traders did not agree to the reduction. 

This is the first tender where a 15% freight advantage to the country's National Navigation Company (NNC) was suspended, allowing a private company, GTCS, to offer the cheapest option.

At its last successful tender, which closed October 6, GASC booked 240,000 mt of Russian and Romanian wheat for the second half of November shipment paying $320.51/mt FOB and $351.61/mt CFR on average.

Egypt is the world’s biggest wheat importer and is expected to import 13 million mt in the 2021/22 marketing year, according to USDA data.

Details of previous GASC buying can be found on the Tender Dashboard.

Correction: the prices paid in the tender were corrected, from an initial $359.94/mt CFR to $360.12/mt CFR and from $$327.98/mt FOB to $328.05/mt FOB.