YPF makes lowest bid for Petropar diesel contract

Argentine fuel distributor YPF presented the lowest offer on Monday for a contract to supply 180 million liters, or 180,000 cubic meters, of diesel to Paraguay's state oil company Petropar, Paraguayan newspaper La Nacion reported. The tender is designed to ensure fuel supplies from April-September. YPF bid a price of US$5.26 a gallon (3.78 liters) of diesel, for a total of 180 million liters, or US$5.49/gallon for less than that amount. Petropar will decide on Friday (Mar. 26) whether to award the diesel contract to YPF. Other considerations include transport costs and financing conditions. The other bidders were Brazil's Petrobras, Venezuela's PDVSA, multinational Vitol and Russia's Lukoil. However, PDVSA was eliminated from the contest because it did not have its product pricing or financing conditions in place, the paper reported. Petropar did not receive any bids for a separate contract to supply up to 300 million liters of gasoline. The company launched on March 21 the prequalification stage for its main fuels tender worth US$500mn to supply fuel from September. Prequalification bids will be received on April 30 this year and economic bids from companies that prequalify in July.