INC awards US$7m petcoke contract

Paraguay's Industria Nacional de Cemento (INC) has awarded the Sanfil GT consortium, represented by Christian Harrison Paleari, the contract for the supply of 24,000t of petcoke at a price of US$299/t.

Delivery of the US$7m contract will be in two shipments of 12,000t each with the first shipment due for delivery by 5 February and the second by 15 March. The contract covers four months of petcoke supply for the cement plant, which uses around 6000tpm.

The contract was negotiated and agreed upon by "exceptional measures", which were not welcomed by the unions at the cement plant, according to ABC Color. They said that petcoke purchases should be put out to international public tender rather than the more expensive route followed. In 2017 INC paid only US$257/t. INC Head, Javier Rodríguez, said the company was running out of stock and that all corresponding legal instances were exhausted. "Everything was done in a legal way; first it was an international call that was declared void and we resorted to the exception route because there was no time and we were running out of stock, and it was awarded to the best offer, because the others were more expensive," he said.