There were no bids at the international tender for importing natural gas from Petroecuador. This Wednesday, November 29, the state-owned company confirmed that there were no physical and systemic bids during the process.

Petroecuador announced a tender for the import of 4,860 million cubic feet of natural gas on November 14, and the deadline for sending offers was this Wednesday, until 10 am.

Petroecuador announced a tender for the import of natural gas, bids will be accepted in the next Government

The state-owned company invited the participation of state-owned companies and companies qualified and authorized to enter into contracts with Petroecuador for the supply of natural gas at the point of consumption. During a review of bids on Wednesday, it was indicated that 13 companies had uploaded data into the system, however, all gave excuses, among them BGN INT DMCC, Freepoint Commodities LLC, Freepoint Commodities Singapore PTE. LTD., Glencore LTD. and Mitsubishi Corporation.

“From the information received by the Document Management Center, it can be seen that no physical bids were received for this tender,” they stated.

In this context, they indicated that they stopped the tender since “no bids were received through the system or in physical document”.

One company remains firm in the bid to improve gas production at Campo Amistad

For energy analyst Daría Dávalos, the lack of offers and interest from companies was due to the short time it took to obtain permits and the lack of clarity in “the technical possibilities to receive the natural gas they hoped to import.”

“Today there were no bids for the import of natural gas, but how will companies submit bids if they were given a super short deadline to obtain permits to transport that product, in a country where obtaining an identity card takes forever, there were no “technical possibilities to receive of natural gas that expected imports are clear,” wrote an expert on X (formerly Twitter).

According to Dávalos, it was important to speed up the bidding process for Campo Amistad “so that they are not in trouble like today”, now – he said – “they will have to import more diesel” for which he indicated that two new tenders have been announced.

On November 14, the company indicated that it has invited 22 companies from the International Trade Administration’s Supplier Register to be part of the bidding process to meet the demand for 45 million cubic feet of natural gas per day required by the Termogas Machala Plant, in accordance with the provisions Ministerial Agreement MEM-MEM-2023-0019-AM of October 3, 2023.

This ministerial agreement established that the public company must carry out natural gas import activities to supply thermal power plants and the country’s electricity needs.

Meanwhile, on Monday, November 27, Petroecuador reported that the Amistad gas field concession tender has been postponed for the third time in three months. According to the previous calendar, the receiving phase of envelope 2, for Amistad field bids, was supposed to take place on a recent Monday, however, it has now been changed to December 7, 2023. While the contract award was planned for January 3, 2024, but it was changed to the 12th. January 2024

In the afternoon of this Wednesday, Petroecuador reported that the new authorities will be able to determine the relevance of holding a new tender or analyze possible alternatives for the supply of natural gas, since they have not “received proposals from the 21 companies invited to participate in the procedure”.