Petronet To Seek Fresh Shipping Bids

India's Petronet LNG will seek fresh price bids from the four consortia left in the race for a contract to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar to a terminal at west coast Dahej. "Technical bids have been opened and deviations are being sorted out. Once that is over, fresh price bids would be asked from the four," the official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters. He said the deadline for selecting the shippers is March 31. Of the eight consortia which were pre-qualified after global competitive bidding, only four submitted technical and price bids. These are: * Indian Oil Corp., Exmar of Belgium and Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd. * Essar Shipping and Malaysia International Shipping Corp. * National flag carrier Shipping Corporation of India and Japanese consortium of Mitsui OSK Lines, Nippon Yusen KK. * Osprey Maritime Ltd. and Abu Dhabi-based al-Manhal International Group. Petronet LNG Ltd has chosen a group led by Japan's IHI to build the LNG import and regasification terminal at Dahej at an estimated cost of $535.8 m. The receiving, storage and regasification terminal will be capable of handling five million tons of LNG per annum from Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co.