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Sri Lankan state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp. (Ceypetco) has announced that it is to delay the award of a tender to purchase 360,000 metric tonnes of fuel oil as it continues to carry out an evaluation of the offers received, according to Reuters.

The refiner has said that it will extend the validity date for the tender to April 29 as it requires more time to examine prices received by bidders and to review the quality of fuel oil needed by national electricity supplier Ceylon Electricity Board(CEB), which was seeking a supply of utility-grade fuel oil for a new power plant in Muthurajawela.

The tender closed on April 1 and was originally expected to be awarded to Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) S.A.. According to market sources, the Brazilian energy firm offered to sell the low-sulphur fuel oil at a premium of $42.27 a tonne to the Singapore 180cst spot price.

Trafigura, Vitol and Shell are understood to have also taken part in the bidding for the tender.

Ceypetco planned to buy 12 monthly shipments of 30,000 metric tonnes - 360,000 tonnes in total - on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis to Colombo, starting in June 2008.

Traders in the market say the tender could now be cancelled and reoffered to the market at a later date.