  |
Honduras moves forward with tender amid private companies concern
Platts
Houston
Petroleumworld.com 06 29 06
Honduras will tender within the next 15 days both to buy all fuel
products consumed in the country and to build storage capacity.The move is part of a government effort to save money by buying fuel in
bulk, even as some private companies voice their concerns.The tenders would be for contracts for a minimum of one year to buy 5.2
million barrels of diesel, 2.8 million barrels of gasoline, 350,000 barrels of
fuel for aviation, 6 million barrels of fuel oil and 980,000 barrels of LPG,
said Gerardo Pelen, an official with Suroil, a consulting company readying the
tendering for the government.The tenders aim to change the way fuel products are imported to Honduras,
a country that does not refine fuels.Under the new system, the government will import all fuel used in the
country and then sell it to distributors. Under the current system, fuel
importers and distributors Chevron, Dippsa, ExxonMobil, Shell and Hondupetrol
each separately import, store and distribute the products.Mario Sierra, deputy general manager of Dippsa, which claims to have the
country's biggest network of service stations, told Platts Monday that while
the company has not seen any bidding documents yet, Dippsa opposes changes
that would restrict its right to import independently."The government has the right to do whatever is most convenient for the
country but without taking away the rights of private companies nor breaking
existing contracts," Sierra said.Jorge Arechaga, general manager of Hondupetrol, a division of the
Honduran Grupo Terra, which imports fuel oil and diesel to Honduras, told
Platts last week that it has contracts that will last about one year to import
300,000 barrels per month of fuel oil and 50,000 barrels per month of diesel.Pelen said the Honduras government is still considering some issues
before the tenders, such as whether it may exclude fuel oil from the tender
as both Hondupetrol and Lufusa, another Honduran privately owned electricity
generator, are end-users with the ability to supply themselves.The publishing of tender documents and deadlines may take as long as 40
days while the issues are worked out, Pelen said.The ability to buy in bulk will save Hondurans about $46 million in all
its annual fuel purchases, according to Suroil estimates. The fuels will be
tendered with a delivery date starting as soon as August, Pelen said.
Deliveries will first be made to existing facilities to be rented by the
government in Puerto Cortes while new facilities are tendered separately and
completed, he added.Pelen also said Honduras plans to tender within a month a project to
build as much as 2.5 million barrels of fuel storage capacity. Total
investment is estimated anywhere from $50 million to $70 million, he added.The company offering lower fuel handling costs, among other criteria, will
win the tender to build, operate and eventually transfer to the country the
rights to run or rent the docks, fuel tanks and truck loading facilities.The government is considering offering the Puerto Castilla area, also in
the Atlantic Coast, as the site for the new tank and loading facilities, Pelen
said. The area has good depth for ships and has in the past been used to store
fuel, he added.A government source said earlier this year that in 2005 Honduras consumed
2.6 million barrels of gasoline, 5.3 million barrels of diesel and 5.3 million
barrels of fuel oil.--Renzo Pipoli, renzo_pipoli@platts.com
For more news, request a free trial to Platts Latin American Wire at
http://latinamericanwire.platts.com or subscribe now at
http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=1_29&products_id=30
Platts 28 06 06
Copyright ©2006 Platts. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels