The Hindu Business Line : 8 bids for STC wheat tender

The State Trading Corporation of India's (STC) 30 lakh tonne (lt) wheat import tender has received a lukewarm response, with not a single one of the eight parties bidding for the entire quantity.

In all, there were eight bidders, including Australia's monopoly export body, AWB Ltd, the US commodity giant Cargill and Glencore International of Switzerland. All of them put together bid for around 26 lt, with AWB offering 12 lt, Glencore five lt and Cargill 3.5-4 lt, sources said.

$200-210 price range seen

"The bidders offered to supply different quantities at various ports. So, it is difficult to arrive at an exact price, though on an average, it would work out between $200-210 per tonne, cost & freight (c&f)," they added. This is against the $178.75 landed price at which AWB had bagged STC's earlier tender for 5 lt awarded on March 1.

The bids opened today at STC's office would be first subject to technical evaluation by officials in the Agriculture and Health Ministries. Once they are seen to confirm to the technical norms, there would be evaluation of the price bids, for which the last date is May 30. Unlike in the last tender, when the bidders were required to quote prices on a $ per tonne c&f basis, this time STC has mandated that the quotes be on both c&f as well as free-on-board (f.o.b) basis along with port of loading and freight rates.

Delivery schedule

The entire 30 lt quantity of wheat is to be delivered between July and October, to be divided equally between the east and west coast ports.