Adani Enterprises, 10 others keen on bidding for coal import tenders

New Delhi: Adani Enterprises and 10 other companies including offshore firms have expressed interest in bidding for coal import tenders floated by Coal India Limited, the public sector minor said on Tuesday.

In a statement, the miner said it has held three pre-bid meetings with prospective coal importing agencies evincing interest in pitching in, in the three international competitive bidding e-tenders that the company had floated earlier in the month for import of coal.

On June 9, Coal India Ltd (CIL) said that it has floated its maiden tender to import 2.416 MT of coal to ensure adequate supply of the fuel to power plants in the country. Next day the company floated two more medium-term tenders for sourcing 6 million tonnes (MT) of coal from overseas The meetings were held on June 14 and June 17, it said, adding, "a total of 11 coal importers joined the session with CIL officials.

The prominent Indian agencies among them were Adani Enterprises Limited, Mohit Minerals and Chettinad Logistics Private Limited. Couple of coal exporting agencies from abroad also have shown interest including one from Indonesia.

The objective of the meetings was to help the bidders gain a better understanding of the bid document, scope of work and its finer shades and iron out the crimps.

According to the CIL statement, "Important amendments in the tender that the bidders requested were narrowing the time window of the bid price validity from 90 days to 60 days. Another was fixing time period for the supply of the first tranche of shipment, from the date of letter of award, between 4 and 6 weeks." Earlier, the supply schedule was based on a particular percentage of delivery in each of the months of the second quarter of FY23.

Taking cognizance of their requests favourably, CIL amended the bid document and a corrigendum has already been floated on e-procurement portal to hasten the process without any bumps.

For the coal that lands on Indian shores, quantity assessment and quality testing shall have to be done through CIL's empanelled third party sampling agencies.

Last date or receipt of bids for short-term tender is June 29, while that of medium term is July 5, it said.