LONDON, July 31 — Indian state utility Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation Ltd (Apgenco) has bought 500,000 tonnes of Malaysian coal for delivery in August-October following a tender issued early in July, it said today.
Apgenco has paid 5,500 rupees (RM403) per tonne for the coal, which will be supplied by state trading entities.
“The Malaysian coal is fully within our parameters stated for quality, for energy content, ash, etc.,” an Apgenco official said, but declined to specify what those quality parameters were.
Apgenco suppliers include state trading entities MSTC and State Trading Corporation of India Ltd (STC), he said.
Apgenco had been expected to take low energy content Indonesian coal.
Around 200,000 tonnes will be delivered in August, 200,000 tonnes in September and 100,000 tonnes in October, he said.
Under Apgenco’s terms, the coal will be delivered direct to its power plants.
Apgenco decided to buy only through state trading entities rather than private traders and to run this tender with the maximum transparency and fairness, an Apgenco official said.
“We have changed our terms deliberately to have better, more fair conditions for the tender,” he said.
Several Indian state utilities have been strongly criticised for having coal tender terms which prevent fair and open competition among suppliers.
State trading entity MMTC, which buys for the majority of state power plants, has put a recent 12.5 million tonne tender on hold and may re-tender.
MMTC is awaiting guidance from the Commerce Minister, MMTC Chairman Sanjiv Batra said earlier this month. — Reuters
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Do you think this could be similar to the dubious "oil for food" scheme in Iraq?