GAIL is not doing so very well today. The stock opened flat but soon tumbled down to Rs.420.30, down almost 3%. Overall the mood on the counter for now seems negative.

This pessimism has stemmed from the company had to postpone for the third time, when its tender for the Rs.42,370 crore new LNG ships found no takers. The date has now been postponed to 17^th Feb.

In August’14, the PSU had floated a global tender for chartering nine new ships for LNG (liquefied gas) from USA. And it has since then consistently got postponed and this is mainly on account of one clause – the tender requires bidders to build one-third of the ships in India. This condition has been forced on the company by the Oil Ministry while the company stated all along that it might not work. None of the major shipmakers want to move to India while the ministry feels this is the perfect opportunity to arm twist the ship makers to set shop here.