Unipec, Vitol Front-Runners in Bangladesh Fuel Tender

China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co. (Unipec) and Vitol SA submitted the most competitively priced offers for Bangladesh Petroleum Corp's (BPC) tender to import oil products in the first half of 2017, according to an offer document.

In October, state-owned BPC issued a tender to import 965,000 tonnes of gasoil with a maximum 0.05 percent sulphur content, 90,000 tonnes of jet fuel, and 120,000 tonnes of high sulphur fuel oil in the first half of 2017.

Unipec, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, submitted the most competitive offers to supply all of the gasoil and jet fuel, undercutting the next best offers by about $3.3 million, a document summarizing the offers received by BPC and seen by Reuters on Monday showed.

Vitol, the world's largest oil trading house, offered to supply the fuel oil for nearly $250,000 less than its closest competitor, the document showed.

The delivery of the cargoes would be carried out in phases between January and June 2017.

However, despite submitting the cheapest offers, Unipec and Vitol have not yet been selected as the official suppliers of the cargoes since BPC is still reviewing the offers it received.

"After verification, we will send the best offers to the cabinet purchase committee to get approval. It will take about a month to be awarded the tender," said a BPC official who declined to be identified.

BPC's request for quotations closed on Oct. 31 but the tender offers are considered valid until Jan. 13, 2017.

BPC has sought to move away from direct deals with suppliers of fuel products as part of efforts to buy at cheaper rates through international tenders.

By Roslan Khasawneh and Ruma Paul