"We have received SWIFT confirmations for all shipments." Qortia AG on the situation with Ukrainian wheat in Egypt

The issue with payments for shipments of Ukrainian wheat that were previously delayed at Egyptian ports has been resolved, co-owner of Qortia AG Kostiantyn Kuflik told Latifundist.com.

Context. On October 23, Latifundist.com reported that eight vessels carrying Ukrainian wheat remained anchored off Egyptian ports due to delays in opening letters of credit for the state buyer Mostakbal. According to market participants, about 200,000 tons of grain remained unpaid for at that time.

"By Thursday [23 October – ed.], two of our shipments had already been unloaded, one was under unloading. Since then, another has been discharged, and one more is scheduled for today. We have received SWIFT confirmations for all shipments," Kuflik said.

According to him, the delays were caused by new regulations introduced by the Central Bank of Egypt, which tightened the procedures for verifying letters of credit and the origin of goods.

"They introduced a number of additional checks — verifying where exactly the grain comes from and what documents are submitted. Because of this, we had to add some documents, which delayed the process. But this happens. Even our own bank initially carefully reviewed the entire route of the vessels. I’d like to thank Mostakbal Misr for professionally resolving the issue," Kuflik explained.

He added that the company is now working to resolve the issue of compensation for vessel demurrage.

"Now we are working in the standard procedure — submitting demurrage claims for vessel delays in ports. Of course, we will seek compensation, since vessel downtime means extra costs no one planned for. But we believe this issue will also be resolved, as a good dialogue has already been established between the companies," Kuflik said.