R Pyarelal buys 50K tonne Russian wheat for milling

R Pyarelal Import and Export Ltd, an Indian commodities trader, said it bought 50,000 metric tonne of wheat from Hungary’s WJ Grain Ltd to supply to local cookie producers and flour mills.

The trader paid between $185 and $194 a metric tonne on a cost-and-freight basis for the Russian wheat, Siddharth Agarwal, the company’s director, said on Wednesday over phone from Kolkata. Cost-and-freight purchases require the seller to pay for the shipping costs.

The first cargo of about 25,000 tonne would arrive at Tuticorin port in the next 20 days, while the second cargo would be loaded around September 15, he added.

India, the world’s second-largest consumer of wheat after China, began importing the grain this year after a gap of six years to meet a shortfall in domestic output, bolstering global grain prices.

Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade have risen 14% in the past one year.

The government-owned State Trading Corp (STC) has contracted to import 3.83 million tonne of wheat this year, while private traders have signed deals to purchase close to 3,00,000 tonne of the grain after the government last month allowed companies other than the STC to import wheat to boost local supplies.

MMTC Ltd, a state-owned trading company, on Monday cancelled a tender to buy 1,20,000 tonne of wheat because of high prices.

India’s wheat imports may reach 4.5 million tonne in the year to March 2007, the highest in three decades, the US foreign agricultural service in New Delhi said on June 16.

Source: Bloomberg