Ministry holds pre-bid meeting with potential oil marketers-
-amid transparency concerns
The Ministry of Natural Resources (MoNR) yesterday held a pre-bid meeting with prospective bidders to market this country’s oil and reported participation by over 20 companies from around the world.
“We today held a pre-bid meeting for interested companies… in excess of 20 companies were in that meeting and it was companies from all over the world,” an official of the MoNR, who requested anonymity, told the Stabroek News yesterday when contacted.
The official explained that the names of companies could not be disclosed as the pre-bid meeting formed part of the overall procurement process which the ministry did not want to compromise.
According to the official, a number of questions were posed and the discussions that took place were “very clear and concise.”
Still without a regular marketer for oil since production began in December 2019, Guyana has for the third time issued a tender as part of its search.
However, this time it has not made the requirements public or stated for how long the service will be needed. Instead, interested bidders have to write government to ask for information on how to bid, although it is stated that bids will close on August 3 of this year. The new process raises transparency questions on commitments from the Irfaan Ali-led PPP/C government.
The official yesterday said that the bid document bought by bidders is “transparent and not complicated as before”.
“The Ministry of Natural Resources, herein referred to as “the Procuring Entity”, invites eligible bidders to submit their bids for execution of the Provision of Marketing Services for the Cooperative Republic of Guyana’s oil Entitlement from the Liza Destiny FPSO Vessel,” a notice posted on July 8 on the Ministry of Natural Resources (MoNR) website states.
Bidders were informed that their tenders will be opened at 9 o’clock on the morning of August 3.
It is unclear why a process that withholds the requirements was chosen and this newspaper has written to the Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat seeking answers. A response has not yet been received.
After months of questioning by Stabroek News for an update and repeatedly failing to fulfill commitments to shed light on the outcome of the process to select a marketer, and on the current sales regime being used for this country’s oil lifts, MoNR would only say last month that that it would inform on a decision when one was made.
In February this year, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had announced that the government believed that a “nonsensical” inclusion for evaluation of the tender set by the former APNU+AFC administration as part of the criteria for bidders wanting to market Guyana’s oil, led to 28 of 29 companies being deemed non-responsive. At that time he said that government was considering the removal of the criterion and asking all companies that submitted proposals to resubmit their documents.
However, nothing had been said on what was done since then and if the idea mentioned by Jagdeo was pursued. No notice to this effect was seen by this newspaper in print or other media
until last Thursday’s notice on the MoNR’s website.
In May this year, Jagdeo was asked for an update and responded that while he did not have the information at hand, he would ask the MoNR to make it available and to post the information on its website for easy access.
While in opposition, the PPP/C had been heavily critical of the former APNU+AFC administration’s handling of issues relating to the oil and gas sector and secrecy surrounding decisions made in the sector.
On December 27, 2019, then Opposition Leader Jagdeo had severely criticised a plan by the APNU+AFC Department of Energy to invite companies here to bid for the marketing of Guyana’s first three lifts of one million barrels of oil. Jagdeo had said that that plan was in breach of the country’s procurement law.
After it took office last year August, the PPP/C had announced that it had scrapped the shortlist of 19 prospective marketers from the 34 that had participated in the first process under the APNU+AFC government in April 2020 while the country was in the middle of a political crisis and awaiting results of the March 2 general elections. The process the PPP/C chose saw the omission of a prequalification phase