State Trading Corporation gets many takers for government wheat tender

NEW DELHI: The State Trading Corporation of India ( STC), which has been exporting wheat from government warehouses, has received a good response to a tender floated for the export of 1.60 lakh tonne of wheat. It received the highest bid at $282.62 a tonne for its wheat -- more than the government’s floor price of $260 a tonne. Three more tenders for the export of 7.4 lakh tonne of wheat will be opened on January 10, 14 and 23.

According to government officials, STC which had come up with tenders to offload 1,60,000 tonne wheat from Mundra port in Gujarat got the highest bid from Swiss-based, Dutch-owned multinational energy and commodity trading company Vitol which quoted $282.62 a tonne to export 50,000 tonne wheat.

More than 7 bidders participated for the global tender including Louis Dreyfus, Emmsons, Al Ghurair, Glencore, Concordia and Vitol. Demand for Indian wheat is coming from West Asia and South East Asian countries according to traders.

French conglomerate company Louis Dreyfus was the second-highest bidder at $280.62 a tonne with an offer to export 40,000 tonne wheat. This was followed by Delhi-headquartered Emmsons’ bid at $279.50 a tonne with an offer to export 40,000 tonne wheat, said people with knowledge of the matter. STC had issued the tender in December 2013 offering the grain from government warehouses for shipment between January 4 and February 3.

Huge wheat stocks in the central pool had led the government to allow export of 20 lakh tonne of wheat in August 2013. As on December 16, the total stock of wheat in the central pool was 299.39 lakh tonne with Food Corporation of India (FCI) holding 120.34 lakh tonne.