The Damietta Port received the cargo ship PETRA III, sailing under the flag of Panama and coming from Russia, carrying an estimated cargo of 40,241 tons of Russian wheat for the General Authority For Supply Commodities in Egypt, the media center of the Egyptian Damietta Port Authority announced.
The port also received – for the second time this year – the ship SABAEK, loaded with the largest shipment of its kind of Russian wheat at 100,000 tons to the General Authority for Supply Commodities, the RT news network reported.
SABAEK, at 250 meters long, 44 meters wide, and with a draft of 14 meters, is considered the largest ship to have docked at the port since its opening in 1986.
On January 11, Russia issued a statement confirming that, despite the New Year holidays, it continued to ship grain to various countries of the world, including Egypt.
The volume of Russian wheat exports doubled to 963,000 tons, compared to 480,000 tons for the same period in 2022.
Corn exports also increased by 27 percent reaching 44,500 tons, the director of the analytics department of the Russian Grain Union (RGU), Elena Tyurina, said.
According to Tyurina, Egypt received the highest amount of Russian wheat among importing countries in January, as it received 191,500 tons of Russian wheat from January 1 to 8, 2023, compared to 103,000 tons in 2021.
Early in January, 132,000 tons of Russian grains were exported to Pakistan and to Algeria, she added.
Tyurina said that the new buyers of Russian wheat in 2023 were the Sultanate of Oman, Kenya, Tanzania and Qatar, which received no shipments of Russian wheat in January 2021.
She explained that the top importers from Russia are Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Oman, Kenya, Tanzania and Israel.
On January 22, Egypt announced that Damietta Port received the Ship OXANA V coming from Russia carrying 42,000 tons of wheat.
The ship raised the flag of Panama and is 186 meters long and 31 meters wide.
On February 3, the General Authority for Supply Commodities in Egypt contracted for 535,000 tons of Russian wheat, funded by the World Bank.
Earlier, Egypt announced that the Egyptian port of Safaga had received the ship PAREA, loaded with 63,000 tons of Russian wheat.