India's STC may seek more time from bidders for wheat

India's State Trading Corp may ask two firms including Australia's AWB Ltd, whose bids were accepted for the supply of wheat, to extend the validity period on their offers by one or two days, a government official said on Monday.
India last week accepted the two bids, to supply a total 1.7 million tonnes of wheat, but rejected six other bids in the three million tonne import tender.
"We may extend the validity period for the tender by one or two more days," the official told Reuters.
The bids were opened last week and are valid until Tuesday.
The official did not give details. But traders said STC wanted to explore the possibility of buying bigger quantities from the two firms and also negotiate the prices.
Junior Food Minister Akhilesh Prasad Singh said last week that the bids of AWB for supply of 1.2 million tonnes and Agrico Trade and Finance for 500,000 tonnes were found to be technically qualified.
AWB has offered to supply 60,000 tonnes of wheat at the western Indian port of Mundra, which can take panamax size vessels, at $187 a tonne including cost and freight. The remaining amount will be supplied at other Indian ports at between $208-210 per tonne cost and freight.
Agrico has offered wheat of Russian origin at around $198 a tonne cost and freight, traders said.
They said STC was negotiating with AWB to bring down its offer price in line with that of Agrico but the Australian firm was unlikely to comply.
Traders said AWB might end up supplying only about 500,000 tonnes of wheat against the 1.2 million tonnes it had bid.
Last week the junior minister said the government might consider floating an additional tender if it does not get the required volumes from the present tender.
"Various options will probably be looked at if the required quantity of wheat is not coming," the government official said. "No firm decision has yet been taken."
Traders also said the government may think of opening up wheat imports to users such as flour mills once its own reserve stock requirement has been met.
AWB, which won a tender to ship 500,000 tonnes of wheat in March, has supplied about 100,000 tonnes of that total. Some 400,000 tonnes have been held up for not clearing stringent quality specifications.
The minister has said he expected the shipments to arrive over the next few weeks.