Good and bad in third Dahej jetty retenders
Petronet-LNG had some good and bad surprises in two tenders to set up a third jetty for the Dahej LNG terminal's expansion from 17.5m t/y to 22.5m t/y.
By the extended May 21 (2024) deadline, Japan's Toyo Engineering was the sole bidder to set up the topside and associated facilities. That poor response was a surprise.
Petronet-LNG had expected bids from Taiwan's CTCI-Cinda, Mumbai-based Ace Pipeline Contracts, and L&T. Toyo was the lowest bidder in the previous scrapped version of this tender, where Petronet-LNG opened price bids on May 3 (2023).
In that tender, L&T came second. CTCI's Indian arm was keen to bid in the fresh tender, we hear, but didn't receive approval from senior management in Taiwan.
L&T is overloaded with work in India and overseas and chose to stay away. Ace did not bid because it didn't meet Petronet-LNG's qualification criteria.
Toyo, L&T, CTCI and Ace participated in Petronet-LNG's online pre-bid for the reissued jetty topside tender on March 15 (2024). Expect Petronet-LNG to negotiate with Toyo to bring down its price.
For the jetty's marine facilities, L&T, Afcons and Thailand-based ITD Cementation bid by the extended May 6 (2024) deadline. L&T and Afcons bid in the previous tender, but ITD is a newcomer - a welcome surprise for Petronet-LNG.
Afcons bid lowest last time when Petronet-LNG opened price bids on May 3 (2023). Some believe ITD will likely win because of its extensive experience.
Others claim that Petronet-LNG actively wants ITD to win. "As price bids had been opened in the previous tender, the numbers are public knowledge, and this would have helped ITD bid aggressively," says a source.
Nevertheless, a common complaint is that Petronet-LNG has not increased its budget of about Rs1100cr ($137m) for the jetty's marine facilities and Rs700cr ($87m) for the topside facilities despite rising costs. In the previous tender, Afcons quoted about Rs1350cr ($162m) for the marine facilities, while Toyo quoted Rs766cr ($92m).
"Afcons' bid was more than 10% higher (than the budget)," we hear. "Toyo's was more than 5% above."