Egypt's GASC says seeks wheat for Sept. 26 to Oct. 5 shipment

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Egypt's General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) set a tender on Thursday to buy an unspecified amount of wheat from global suppliers for shipment from Sept. 26 to Oct. 5. Ahmed Youssef, vice chairman of GASC, said the authority is seeking to buy cargoes of soft and/or milling wheat from the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Poland, Argentina, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. Tenders should reach GASC by noon local time (1000 GMT) on Friday. The results should come out after 3:30 p.m. on the same day. Wheat bids should be free-on-board, with a separate freight offer. GASC cancelled its previous international wheat tender on Aug. 23 without giving any reason. That tender sought wheat for Sept. 21-30. Earlier on Thursday, Egypt's Minister of Supply Khaled Hanafi resigned, the most senior-level fallout from a probe into whether millions of dollars intended to subsidise farmers were used to purchase domestic wheat that did not exist. Egypt's supply ministry is in charge of a massive food subsidy programme as well as GASC. In its latest tender, GASC is seeking to buy 55,000-to-60,000-tonne cargoes of the following: U.S. North Pacific soft white wheat; U.S. soft red winter wheat; Russian milling wheat; Ukrainian milling wheat, and Australian standard white wheat. GASC is also seeking 60,000-tonne cargoes of the following: Canadian soft wheat; French milling wheat; German milling wheat; Argentine bread wheat; Polish milling wheat; Kazakh milling wheat; Romanian milling wheat, and Bulgarian milling wheat. (Reporting by Maha El Dahan in Abu Dhabi; Writing by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago; Editing by James Dalgleish)