Saudi Arabia bought more than half a million tons of wheat

31 May 2021, 13:46

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The Saudi state purchaser SAGO bought 562,000 tons of wheat from the origins of the European Union, the Black Sea, Australia, North and South America, having completed the procedures for the third tender for the current year.

SAGO Governor Ahmed al-Fares announced that the completion of this tender comes within the framework of meeting the milling companies’ demand for wheat and maintaining the strategic reserve at safe levels.

"This batch of imported wheat will be supplied during the period of August–September 2021 in 9 shipments; distributed to 4 shipments for Jeddah Islamic Port with the amount of 245,000 t, 3 shipments for Yanbu Commercial Port with the amount of 190,000 t and 2 shipment for King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam with the amount of 127,000 t," he specifies.

As reported, 23 qualified global companies specialized in grains trade were invited to the tender, 15 of them competed to supply the amount to be imported and the offers which had the lowest rates of shipments were selected.

With the completion of the third tender for this year, the Organization has contracted to import about 1.2 mln t of wheat since the beginning of 2021.

SAGO is currently receiving quantities of local wheat through 8 of its plants as part of the local wheat season, which will last until the end of October, to further maintain the strategic stocks of wheat. SAGO provides its services to the local farmers through the “Mahsoli” platform including plant selection, appointments scheduling and all payment procedures.

In its May report, USDA projects wheat production in Ukraine at 29 mln t in 2021/22. The forecast for 2020/21 is at 25.42 mln t.

As of May 24, wheat export from Ukraine equaled 15.65 mln t, 22% lower YoY. This amount makes up 89% of the agreed in the MoU volume of wheat export from Ukraine in the 2020/21 season.