All the major wheat exporting regions sold grain in a bumper weekend for purchases, totalling 930,000 tonnes, with Saudi Arabia purchasing more than it had tendered for, and Egypt ramping up its order volume.

Saudi Arabia's state-run Grain Silo and Flour Mills Organization revealed it had bought 575,000 tonnes of hard wheat, with a 12.5% minimum protein content, from Australia, the European Union and North and South America, 25,000 tonnes more than it had tendered for.

The organisation paid an average price of $368.73 a tonne for 300,000 tonnes bound for the Saudi port of Jeddah, with the remaining 275,000 tonnes, bound for Dammam, purchased at $374.49 a tonne.

The order, which left one question over whether the North American supplies came from Canada or the US, left only the Black Sea region unrepresented among top exporters.

However, earlier Egypt's announcement of an order for 355,000 tonnes of wheat from the Black Sea countries of Russia and Ukraine besides Romania, which is also an EU state.

Large order

The order by Egypt, the world's top wheat importer, took the total amount of the grain the country has ordered so far in 2012-13 to 775,000 tonnes, nearly 500,000 tonnes from Russia, and was the biggest order in a year.

Indeed, the scale of the purchases from Russia were seen as exploiting this supply line while it was still open, with a poor harvest expected by many investors to see the country run through its exportable surplus as of November, and potentially next month.

Russia's wheat prices, meanwhile, have maintained global competitiveness thanks to competition by merchants for share of what is seen as, long term, a promising export market, and by concerns that Moscow will impose constraints on shipments to protect domestic supplies.

'Filling its boots'

Egypt at the weekend "took advantage of the volumes still available in Russia", Agritel, the Paris-based consultancy, said.

A UK grain trader told Agrimoney.com: "Egypt is filling its boots with Russian wheat while it can.

"It is going to be forced to turn to Europe or the US sooner or later, and even if their grain prices have come down a bit by then, it will have to pay extra in shipping costs."

Lot details

Egypt actually paid, at $321.50-323.41 per tonne, slightly more for Russian wheat at the weekend than it did in its previous order, on August 25, when the most expensive lot went for $320.94 a tonne.

Shipping costs, at about $24 a tonne from US Gulf of Mexico ports, are twice as expensive as those from Russia.

Paris wheat for November overcame early losses to close at E264.50 a tonne, a gain of 0.5%.