Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer, has bought 120,000 tonnes of Russian wheat for shipment between 1 and 10 January 2012, the main government wheat buyer said on Wednesday. Nomani Nomani, vice chairman of the state-run General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), gave the following breakdown of the purchases: -60,000 tonnes from Louis Dreyfus at $US243.44 a tonne and freight costs of $15.90 a tonne -60,000 tonnes from Louis Dreyfus at $243.44 a tonne and freight costs of $15.90 a tonne. On a cost and freight basis, the cheapest French offer was $29.70 per tonne higher than the accepted Russian offers while the Ukraine offer would be $6.78 more per tonne and Argentinian wheat offered would be $31.25 more per tonne, he said. "This makes the degree of competition between the various origins clear," Nomani said. Since the start of the 2011/12 fiscal year on 1 July, GASC has purchased 2.46 million tonnes of Russian wheat, 180,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat and 120,000 tonnes of Kazakh wheat. GASC said on Tuesday it would like to buy more French wheat but that prices offered were not cheap enough. "I would also like to note that there were no offers for U.S. wheat in the tender," Nomani said. In the fiscal year that ended on 30 June 2011, GASC purchased some 5.58 million tonnes of French, U.S., Canadian, Australian and Argentine wheat. Russia banned exports last year due to a severe drought.
