HAMBURG: The lowest price in the first round of offers in Thursday’s tender by Turkey’s state grain board TMO to purchase and import 270,000 tonnes of milling wheat was believed to be $450.00 a tonne C&F, traders said in initial assessments.

No purchase has yet been made and initial results of the tender are expected later in the day, they added.

Turkey is among the grain importers worldwide hit by surging prices after the sudden halt of grain exports from Ukraine and a sharp reduction from Russia following the conflict in Ukraine, which Moscow terms a “special operation,” that closed ports.

The lowest price offered in Thursday’s tender was for two consignments each of 25,000 tonnes of 12.5% protein wheat for shipment to the ports of Tekirdag and Samsun, traders said. Both were made by trading house Marmara, they added.

In its last wheat purchase on Jan.18, before the Ukraine fighting, Turkey bought 335,000 tonnes at the highest price of $351.80 for 13.5% protein wheat.

In its last wheat tender on March 3, the TMO cut its purchase of wheat to about 285,000 tonnes from 370,000 tonnes provisionally awarded because of high prices, with the highest price $451.80 a tonne for 13.5% protein wheat.