Caltex denies manipulation charge in pipeline project
Thursday, February 7 2002 - 01:27 AM WIB
CPI?s spokesman Renville Almatsier said in Jakarta on Wednesday that as the process of the tender for the submersible pipeline project was still going on, the pricing of the project, which had been accused of being marked up, had not been fixed.
He said that the oil giant divided the construction of its submersible projects into two packets. The first package, which is called Package A covers the construction of underground pipelines in the southern part of the company?s oil concessions, while Package B covers the northern area.
According to Renville, under the existing tender procedure, the winner of the first package is no longer allowed to carry out the second package so that the projects will also give a wide opportunity to other bidders. He said that five bidders joined the Package A but only three of them passed the pre-qualification. The Package A was finally won by PT Rede Pumps Indonesia (RPI) which bid the project for US$150 million.
He said that several bidders had also joined the tender for the construction of the pipeline project in the Package B. But the bidding price offered by the bidders was above Caltex?s estimate of $130 million. Based on the procedure, Caltex should be allowed to negotiate the pricing if the bidding price is higher than the initial ceiling.
?The negotiation is still continuing and the winner of the project has not been selected,? he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
A member of the Commission VIII of the House of Representatives (DPR) Harry Sohar earlier accused Caltex of manipulating the contract value of the Package B project. He alleged that the company had marked up the contract to $230 million from $130 million previously.
According to him, the mark-up would inflict a loss of $100 million to the government as all of the spending made by oil and gas production sharing contractors should be covered by state owned oil and gas company Pertamina.(*)