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Egypt Shrinks Subsidized Bread Loaf by 20 gms, Revises Cost of Flour

Egyptians buy bread from a street bakery in Cairo. (Reuters)
Egyptians buy bread from a street bakery in Cairo. (Reuters)
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Egypt Shrinks Subsidized Bread Loaf by 20 gms, Revises Cost of Flour

Egyptians buy bread from a street bakery in Cairo. (Reuters)
Egyptians buy bread from a street bakery in Cairo. (Reuters)

Egypt will shrink the size of its subsidized loaf of bread by 20 grams, a document seen by Reuters showed on Monday, allowing bakers to make more fixed price loaves from the standard 100-kg sack of flour.

Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, offers bread to more than 60 million people as part of a sprawling food subsidy program. Changes to food support are highly sensitive in Egypt, where a decision to cut bread subsidies led to deadly riots across the country in 1977.

The new weight of the loaf of bread will be 90 grams and each sack of flour shall yield 1,450 loaves effective Aug 18, the document showed.

A bakery owner in Cairo who chose to remain anonymous told Reuters that the change in the loaf would be noticeable to consumers.

“Due to many demands received by the ministry of supply from general bakers divisions across the country, we agreed to recalculate the cost of each sack of flour... (to account for) increases in gas and diesel fuel prices... and to add an insurance cost for bakery workers to be borne by the ministry,” Ahmed Kamal, the supply ministry’s spokesman, told Reuters.

The revised cost of the ministry’s standard sack of flour will now be 265 Egyptian pounds ($16.68) up from 213 Egyptian pounds ($13.40).

Subsidized bread would still cost 0.05 Egyptian pounds ($0.0031) and each individual would be allocated five loaves on the subsidy program, Kamal added.

“The ministry will tighten supervision on all bakeries to make sure the designated specifications, quality and weights necessary for the production of subsidized loaf (are followed, in addition to) the application of penalties and fines against violators.”

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Indian State Refiners May Buy Mideast Spot Oil to Replace Russian Shortfall

A worker rides a bicycle at the Bharat Petroleum Corporation refinery in Mumbai, April 24, 2008. REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe/FILE PHOTO
A worker rides a bicycle at the Bharat Petroleum Corporation refinery in Mumbai, April 24, 2008. REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe/FILE PHOTO
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Indian State Refiners May Buy Mideast Spot Oil to Replace Russian Shortfall

A worker rides a bicycle at the Bharat Petroleum Corporation refinery in Mumbai, April 24, 2008. REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe/FILE PHOTO
A worker rides a bicycle at the Bharat Petroleum Corporation refinery in Mumbai, April 24, 2008. REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe/FILE PHOTO

Indian state refiners are considering tapping the Middle East crude market as spot supply from their top supplier Russia have fallen, three refining sources said, in a move that could support prices for high-sulphur oil.
The three large state refiners- Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum- are short of 8-10 million barrels of Russian oil for January loading, the sources told Reuters.
The refiners fear continued problems in securing Russian oil in the spot market could continue in coming months as Moscow's own demand is rising and it has to meet commitments under the OPEC pact.
However, they added that they can draw from their inventories to meet crude processing needs in March.
Two of the sources said their company may lift more crude from Middle East suppliers under optional volumes in term contracts or to float a spot tender for high-sulphur oil.

IOC, the country's top refiner, previously floated spot tenders to buy sour grades in March 2022.
The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
India became the largest importer of Russian crude after the European Union, previously the top buyer, imposed sanctions on Russian oil imports in response to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russian oil accounts for more than a third of India's energy imports.
Russia's spot crude exports since November as its refineries resumed operations after the maintenance season and poor weather disrupted shipping activities, traders said.
“We have to explore alternative grades as Russia's own demand is rising and it has to meet its commitments under OPEC,” said another of the three sources.
Russia, an ally of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, promised to make extra cuts to its oil output from the end of 2024 to compensate for overproduction earlier.
Also, most supplies from Russia's state oil firm Rosneft are tied up in a deal with Indian private refiner Reliance Industries, Reuters reported earlier this month.
The new deal accounts for roughly half of Rosneft's seaborne oil exports from Russian ports, leaving little supply available for spot sales, sources told Reuters earlier this month.
India has no sanctions on Russian oil, so refiners there have cashed in on supplies made cheaper than rival grades by the penalties by at least $3 to $4 per barrel.
Sources said there are traders in the market that are willing to supply Russian oil for payments in Chinese Yuan but noted that state refiners stopped paying for Russian oil in the Chinese currency after advice from the government last year.
“It is not that alternatives to Russian oil are not available in the market but our economics will suffer,” the first source said.
Oil prices rose on Tuesday, reversing the prior session's losses, buoyed by a slightly positive market outlook for the short term, despite thin trade ahead of the Christmas holiday.
Brent crude futures were up 42 cents, or 0.6%, to $73.05 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 38 cents, or 0.6%, to $69.62 a barrel at 0742 GMT, Reuters reported.
FGE analysts said they anticipated the benchmark prices would fluctuate around current levels in the short term “as activity in the paper markets decreases during the holiday season and market participants stay on the sidelines until they get a clearer view of 2024 and 2025 global oil balances.”
Supply and demand changes in December have been supportive of their current less-bearish view so far, the analysts said in a note.
“Given how short the paper market is on positioning, any supply disruption could lead to upward spikes in structure,” they added.
Some analysts also pointed to signs of greater oil demand over the next few months.
“The year is ending with the consensus from major agencies over long 2025 liquids balances starting to break down,” Neil Crosby, Sparta Commodities' assistant vice president of oil analytics, said in a note.
Also supporting prices was a plan by China, the world's biggest oil importer, to issue 3 trillion yuan ($411 billion) worth of special treasury bonds next year, as Beijing ramps up fiscal stimulus to revive a faltering economy.
China's stimulus is likely to provide near-term support for WTI crude at $67 a barrel, said OANDA senior market analyst Kelvin Wong.