Shell wants Hazira price bids by end-March
Shell and Total are believed to have finished issuing queries on technical bids to increase capacity at their Hazira LNG terminal and are likely to ask for price bids by end-March.
Unlike ONGC, Shell evaluates technical bids first and then asks for price bids later, instead of receiving both together. Technical bids were received from three consortia by the extended December 21, 2015 deadline: IHI with Toyo Engineering, Saipem with Larsen & Toubro and Sener with AFCONS.
For more than a month after that none of these companies heard from Shell. But in February Shell woke up and began sending out regular queries.
"We replied to one set of queries sent out in the last week of February," says a contractor. "But bidders are yet to receive confirmation from Shell (that it has no more queries)." Another source describes the multiple queries as "nothing alarming." He says most of the questions were routine and centred on the technical experience and competence of bidders.
This is the second time Shell has issued tenders for a capacity expansion from 5m t/y to 7m t/y. In 2013 Shell issued a tender for the storage tank, which it abruptly cancelled after evaluating technical bids.
"In this new tender bidders (for the tanks) simply had to update their bids," we hear. "Only the 'regas' facilities are new."