SINGAPORE, Jan 10 - A clerical error resulted in Canadian firm Alcan Inc. bidding 40 percent above market rates in an Indian alumina tender last week, a source at the company said late on Tuesday.
"There was a clerical error -- the bid should have read $237.57. This is an isolated case," the source said. Last Thursday, a senior company official at India's state-run National Aluminium Company Limited said the company had sold 30,000 tonnes of alumina at $337 per tonne in a tender.
The size of the bid surprised many traders, coming $100 per tonne above the market. The mistake could cost the integrated Canadian aluminium producer $3 million.
"We are currently in discussion with NALCO regarding the transaction," the Alcan source added.
The price of alumina, an intermediate product that is smelted into aluminium metal, has collapsed from above $600 in the first half of 2006 on rising supply, to around $220. It takes two tonnes of alumina to make one tonne of aluminium metal.
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