CAIRO/CHICAGO: Egypt's main government wheat buyer stepped back into the world market on Monday for the first time in four months to buy an unspecified amount of the grain from top global suppliers, but excluded Russia. Nomani Nomani, vice chairman of the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), one of the world's biggest state importers of wheat, announced a tender to buy wheat from the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Argentina for shipment July 11-20. But GASC did not seek offers from Russia, formerly its top wheat supplier, which returns to the export market on July 1 after a nearly 11-month grain export ban imposed last August as a drought decimated its crops. GASC has said it would exercise caution in its Russian wheat purchases after it was left scrambling to replace more than 500,000 tons in purchases after Moscow imposed the ban. Industry sources said the exclusion of Russia in Monday's tender was evidence of that cautious approach. "They want to see how Russia is going to return to the export market before they jump into it. They got caught with somewhere around a half million tons that they had to cover in the open market when Russia banned exports last year," said Shawn McCambridge, analyst with Prudential Bache Commodities. "I don't think it's an indication that they won't take anything from Russia. This may just be part of the process in order to feel comfortable putting Russian wheat on the books again," he added. In recent tenders by other importers, Russian wheat has been offered at considerably lower prices than grain from the United States and Europe.
