Price bids in for spare Nayara Vadinar SPM
Rosneft-affiliate Nayara Energy is evaluating price bids for the manufacture and supply of a Single Point Mooring (SPM) buoy at its 20m t/y Vadinar refinery in Gujarat.
A well-placed source tells us Nayara set March 20 (2024) as the deadline to receive price bids from UK-based Monobuoy, Netherlands-based Bluewater Energy and US-based SOFEC. All had sent technical proposals by the extended December 6 (2023) deadline.
But he believes only Monobuoy and Bluewater were likely to send in price bids. Unconfirmed reports suggest that SOFEC did not wish to submit a financial proposal amid concerns that Nayara hasn’t provided enough reassurance that it is insulated against Ukraine-related sanctions on Rosneft and its chief executive Igor Sechin.
A source believes this is also why France-based Imodco, a subsidiary of Netherlands-based SBM Offshore, chose not even to send a technical proposal to Nayara, even though Imodco installed the existing SPM in 2010 when the Essar group owned the Vadinar refinery. Nayara wants an SPM with a buoy of 350,000-DWT capable of handling up to 12,000 cm/hour (73,300 barrels/hour) of crude oil for 360 days/year.
"Just the SPM alone should cost around $12m," we hear. "Nayara wants the SPM buoy supplied within 14 months of the LoA; expect a separate tender to install the SPM."
Installing the SPM will involve laying a pipeline from it to the shore crude oil receiving facilities and will likely include a loop pipeline connecting the old and new SPMs. Nayara wants the new SPM installation work to begin sometime next year (2025).
After the new SPM is installed and connected to shore, Nayara plans to send the existing SPM for overhaul to a dry dock. "Typically, an SPM has a 25-year life," we hear.
"Nayara (and before it Essar) maintained the existing SPM well; most likely they (Nayara) have enough Imodco spare parts and consumables in hand; obtaining Imodco spares now on will be impossible because of sanctions against Russia." Overhauling an SPM in a dry dock can be as expensive as buying a new SPM, we hear.
"Last year (2023), Nayara invited tenders to overhaul the (existing) SPM," we learn. "But they shelved the plan as it was expensive; now somebody is again advising them to overhaul the existing SPM."