"Aggressive pricing" has allowed Germany a look-in on the latest Egyptian wheat tender, which for a sixth successive time, snubbed American grain.

Egypt, the world's biggest wheat importer, has chosen 55,000 tonnes of German wheat tendered by grain giant Cargill, at $198.75 a tonne, as part of a 175,000-tonne order.

Egypt's main state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities, also took 60,000 tonnes of French wheat and 60,000 tonnes of Russian grain.

The appearance of Germany on a winners' list which has become increasingly dominated by Russian wheat probably reflected in part a quest by Egypt for a "little bit of quality", a City analyst told Agrimoney.com.

"German wheat is also being pretty aggressively priced," the analyst added, with class B wheat, with a 12% protein content, going at E132 a tonne compared with E135 a tonne for a comparable French grain.

Many analysts had not rated French wheat as having a particularly good chance of edging out Russian competition to get in on the tender, with Agritel, the Paris-based consultancy, viewing the odds as "small" and based on "qualitative criteria".

'Not competitive'

American wheat has not won in an Egyptian tender since September 2, with traders blaming a rally fuelled by fund buying for pricing the grain out of contention.

"Our prices are not competitive in the world market."

Chicago wheat for December stood 10.5 cents lower at $5.55 ¾ a bushel at 16:15 GMT, weighing on European wheats despite the tender victory.

Paris milling wheat for January was down E1.50 at E132.75 a tonne, with London feed wheat for January slipping £1.25 to £106.75 a tonne.

Thursday's winning tender for French wheat was submitted by Granit, with Louis Dreyfus offering the chosen Russian grain.

Alex Grain is believed to have made the cheapest offer of US wheat, at $203.49 a tonne for soft red winter variety.