ALARM BELLS RING OVER TENDERING FOR ROYAL DUTCH SHELL CONTRACTS
Monday 29 August 2005: 03.0 ET
By Alfred Donovan
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria has a double page spread advertisement in the current edition of The Economist magazine (August 27th -September 2nd) inviting tenders for a major contract in Nigeria. There is a volume of small print setting out the tender terms, which includes a provision that Shell will not enter into correspondence on why a company has been short-listed or not short-listed. Basically applicants for “pre-qualification” have to jump through various hoops and submit the required information on a confidential basis. Only companies that pass the pre-qualification evaluation will be eligible to be invited by Shell to “competitively” tender.