HAMBURG: The lowest price offered in the first round of a tender from Turkey’s TMO state grain board to buy 115,000 tonnes of animal feed corn on Thursday was believed to be $278.80 a tonne c&f, traders said in initial assessments.

The offer was said to have been submitted by trading house Erser for 30,000 tonnes for shipment to the port of Izmir.

No purchase has yet been reported, the traders said. The TMO traditionally undertakes several rounds of negotiations in tenders, seeking lower offers each round.

Shipment is sought between March 25 and April 20 for unloading in three Turkish ports in a series of consignments.

Lowest price offered for shipment to the port of Derince was said to be $279.00 a tonne c&f, offered by trading house GTCS for 30,000 tonnes.

Lowest offer for shipment to Bandirma was said to be $280.90 a tonne c&f, offered by trading house Kibar for 25,000 tonnes.

Traders suspected that much of the corn offered was of Russian origin, which is still competitively priced despite a 25 euro ($29.88) per tonne export tax being added to Russian price offers.

Russia has introduced grain export taxes and other restrictions to reduce overseas sales and cool domestic prices.

“Corn supplies are looking tight and to me Russian origin is still looking cheap despite the export tax being added to the price offers,” one trader said.