L&T and Fernas disqualified from GSPL tender
Larsen & Toubro and Turkish contractor Fernas have been disqualified by Gujarat State Petronet (GSPL) from a tender to lay the first 747-km of a proposed 1585-km pipeline from Mallavaram in Andhra Pradesh to Bhilwara in Rajasthan.
When technical and price bids were received by May 26, GSPL discovered L&T had bid through one of its nine group companies, L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering. “This company’s net worth is not enough to qualify,” reports an industry source.
“L&T submitted the consolidated net worth for the whole L&T group but GSPL wants the net worth only for L&T Hydrocarbon.” Unconfirmed reports suggest Fernas was disqualified because GSPL’s consultant Engineers India raised questions about an incident in March 2013 when Fernas allegedly submitted fake certificates from Qatar Petroleum to win two prestigious EPC contracts: an Rs1800cr ($360m) job for ONGC-promoted OPaL at Dahej and an Rs300cr ($60m) contract to lay the South Jetty Pipeline at IndianOil's under-construction Paradip refinery.
Fernas denies both allegations. “This is not the reason for our disqualification," responds Fernas.
"GSPL wants the contractor to have experience laying 150-km of 24-inch diameter pipeline in a single contract. We once laid a 342-km pipeline of 48-inch diameter for GAIL but under three different contracts.
GSPL isn't accepting this.”
