EGYPT’S ERGOT FLIP-FLOPPING has hurt market confidence, Bloomberg reports. “Confidence has been badly hurt … Traders might be in a kind of ‘you go first’ mood,” Vincent Jeannin, a trader at Al Ghurair Resources, said in a comment that was also carried by The Financial Times (paywall). GASC’s tenders might not garner as many offers as before, the director of Solaris Commodities says, “as some will remain skeptical that this is a permanent change.” Still, GASC’s return to the market is set to be welcomed, a ship broker told Bloomberg, "GASC needs wheat to get in, as I understood their stock is getting fairly low … Russians also need to get stock out from their ports. The wheat market needs GASC to get back into the game.” Reuters confirm on Thursday that GASC has amended its tender booklet to reflect its change on ergot tolerance to a level of 0.05%.

GASC signed contracts to buy a total of 240k tonnes of Russian wheat on Thursday, following the cancellation of the ergot ban, said Mohamed El Shahat, media adviser at the Supply Ministry, Al Mal reported. GASC had reportedly received four offers from Louis Dreyfus, Olam, Union and Aston selling the Russian wheat, with shipments set to arrive on 31 October. Ahram Online provides more details on purchase prices. Russian Trade Minister Denis Manturov had also confirmed that Russia will resume shipping wheat to Egypt, after Egypt rejected a 60k tonne cargo of Russian wheat two weeks ago. El Shahat added that Egypt had previously signed contracts to import 540k tonnes of Russian wheat set to arrive this week.