GASC amends wheat terms to get back in the good graces of global wheat traders: The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) amended the terms of its global wheat import tenders ahead of Tuesday’s international wheat tender, Reuters Arabic reports. GASC reportedly reduced the cost of sieving to USD 2 per tonne from USD 3. The state grain buyer also reduced demurrage fees at Egypt’s port to USD 10,000 per day for the first 10 days, from USD 12,000 for 12 days. Traders have been complaining of high demurrage fees, particularly as the sieving process, which reduces foreign contaminants, takes a long time. The changes also come as confusion over ergot policy over the past year has raised the costs of buying wheat and caused disruptions in the supply.

How did the changes impact yesterday’s tender? GASC received several offers for wheat, with the lowest offer put forth by traders coming in at USD 209.5 per tonne free-on-board (FOB) for Russian wheat, traders tell the newswire. The lowest offer after accounting for shipping costs was USD 224.6 per tonne for 60,000 tonnes of Russian wheat and was presented by GTCS. GASC ended up buying a total of 420k tonnes, 300k tonnes from Russia and the rest from Romania.