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Room |
| GE
Shipping, ESL allege speculation in MOL-SCI bid |
| The Economic Times - March
20, 2001 |
Anto T Joseph,
Mumbai |
|
GREAT Eastern Shipping Company
and Essar Shipping have alleged that the Mitsui OSK Line-Shipping
Corporation of India, which won the bid to build and operate
two LNG carriers, is in violation of tender specifications.
GE Shipping and Essar Shipping are part of two consortia
which lost out in the recently concluded bidding process.
The long-term contract was to build and operate two liquefied
natural gas carriers having a capacity of 138,000 cubic
meters. PLL is yet to announce the winner of the contract.
The
controversy is over the escalation factor mentioned in
the bid. While GE Shipping and ESL with their foreign JV
partners -- Exmar of Belgium and MISC of Malaysia - have
quoted a constant figure, MOL-SCI bid has linked the escalation
factor to the US consumer price index.
"Since Mitsui
has linked the escalation to US-CPI, one cannot calculate
life-cycle cost of the LNG vessel on an equal basis. To
announce Mitsui the winner, PLL may have to make a speculative
assumption that US economy would be faring well," said
director (finance) GE Shipping P R Navre. Senior officials
of ESL have also demanded a 'fair' evaluation of bids. |
MOL-SCI has quoted a daily
charter hire of $68,900 for both the vessels, which are
expected to be operational in 2004. While Exmar-GE Shipping-IOC
put a $73,680 bid for the first vessel and $82,250 for
the second with three per cent escalation factor for next
25 years beginning 2004, Malaysia International Shipping
Company-ESL has put in $79,900 and $81,000 bids with an
escalation factor of 3 per cent for both the vessels.
PLL
will be sourcing liquefied gas from Qatar's Ras Laffan
LNG (Rasgas), which will amount to 5 million tonnes of
gas from July 2003. According to the agreement with Rasgas,
Petronet will start lifting a very small quantity in the
first six months and 50 per cent of 5 million tonnes in
the following year, free-on-board basis. Petronet's Dahej
(Gujarat) operations will have an annual capacity of 5
million tonnes, while its Kochi operations will run on
a 2.5-million tonne capacity. |
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