<B>A few simple questions to STC</B>

The press reports that MRPL has entered into a three-year contract valued at over $2 billion with STC Mauritius for meeting the entire petroleum products requirement of Mauritius from August 2007. Under the contract, MRPL will supply one million ton of petroleum products per annum to Mauritius for three years. I just thought of a few simple questions that should be asked about this contract.

1. Did STC do a tender to reconduct the 1 year contract to 3 years? If yes, then that was very quick given from experience a tender of that magnitude usually takes 6 to 9 months to negotiate.

2. Why buy from MRPL, which is a very small supplier on the world market, actually they have only one other account with Dubai? (That means possibly higher prices are paid).

3. Logistically, buying from India is further than South Africa for example - cost of transport would be a lot more, not in Mauritius advantage.

4. In such a volatile market and high price of oil - no credible business would lock into a three years agreement - the norm is one year, reviewed at the end through a tender process or price benchmark.

If all of the above have plausible reasons, then it should be relatively easy for the ministry to tell everyone of the big savings they have made for the country... and how much?

<B>E.B. </B>