The news late last week that GASC bought a 60,000 MT cargo of U.S. SRW seemed to cause only a brief stir in the market despite this being the first such purchase in at least a year. The agency also bought six cargoes of Russian wheat and one of Ukrainian. The U.S. SRW was priced FOB at $219/MT versus Russian wheat at $235.00. The $16 discount was close enough to cover the higher ocean freight cost from the U.S., which prompted GASC to take that 60,000 MT. However, it did not buy a second SRW cargo offered at the same price. GASC likely booked the U.S. wheat in part to remind Black Sea wheat exporters that they do not have demand from the world’s largest wheat importer locked up. We do not want to oversell the significance of a single...