India’s southern Andhra Pradesh has canceled bids made for two separate tenders by India’s Adani Enterprises to supply imported coal as the prices quoted were too high, as reported by Reuters.
Adani, India’s largest coal trader, offered to supply last month 500,000 metric tons (mt) of South African coal at R40,000/mt ($526.50/mt) and another 750,000 mt at R17,480 ($230.08/mt) in January, the officials said.
Benchmark South African coal prices started rising in January to hit a monthly high of $176.50/mt in the wake of an export ban by Indonesia, extending the rise to a record $441.65/mt in March due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Both tenders were canceled because the prices quoted were too high, the officials said. Adani was the only bidder for the 500,000-mt tender, while Agarwal Coal, which had also bid for the 750,000-mt tender, had quoted a higher price than Adani, they said.
India has cut supplies to the non-power sector as it faced two of its worst power shortages in recent years, despite record production by state-run Coal India Ltd.
One of the officials, B Sreedhar, managing director at Andhra Pradesh Power Generation, said the state was living a “hand-to-mouth existence.”
Andhra Pradesh, which faced an electricity deficit of 7% during the last three days of March, floated a tender in early April “for urgent procurement” of 100,000 mt.
Federal government-run NTPC floated a tender last month to import 1.25 million mt of coal.
