Egypt gets lowest offer from Bulgaria in wheat purchase tender

The lowest price offered in an international tender by Egypt’s state commodities buyer GASC on Thursday to purchase wheat was believed to be $225.77 a metric ton FOB for wheat sourced from Bulgaria, traders said in initial assessments.

The offer was believed to have been submitted by trading house Buildcom.

No purchase has been made and the result is expected later on Thursday after continued price negotiations, they said.

Shipment was sought between May 1-10. Suppliers were asked to submit offers for payment via both 180-day and 270-day letters of credit and GASC will choose between them.

Traders gave the following breakdown of the offers on a FOB basis in dollars per ton, tons are in thousands:

Reports reflect assessments from traders and further estimates of prices and volumes are still possible later.

Some traders offered to sell several consignments at the same price with shipments at different ports in the source country.

Traders said repeated offers of Russian wheat at the same level apparently reflected the Russian government’s unofficial minimum export price floor. This pushed Russian prices higher than in tenders with less public results, traders said.

In its previous tender on Feb. 15, GASC bought 180,000 tons from Ukraine and Romania at $255.00 a ton c&f. Since then, wheat prices have fallen to 3-1/2 year lows largely on selling pressure from Russia and other Black Sea exporters. GRA/EU

Egypt secured an expanded $8 billion deal on Wednesday with the International Monetary Fund, hours after the central bank unshackled its currency and delivered a sharp rate hike in a push to stabilise the economy.

Tags: Bulgaria, Egypt, tender, price, wheat