February 19 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's competition authority said on Monday it has rejected a request to temporarily suspend the tender for the selection of owner's engineer launched by ICGB, the project company developing the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria.
The request for temporary suspension was filed by Bulgarian company Next Invest together with a complaint over the extension of the deadline for submitting offers, the Commission for Protection of Competition said in a statement.
The decision can be appealed before the Supreme Administrative Court within the next three days.
Last month, ICGB said it has decided to extend to February 13 the deadline for the submission of offers in the owner's engineer tender. The company is now expected to extend the deadline again.
The ICGB pipeline will connect the Greek gas transmission system in the area of Komotini to the Bulgarian gas transmission system in the area of Stara Zagora.
The planned length of the pipeline is 182 km and the projected capacity will be up to 3 billion cu m per year in the direction from Greece to Bulgaria. Depending on interest from the market and the capacities of the neighbouring gas transmission systems, the capacity of the pipeline can be increased up to 5 billion cu m per year, thus allowing for physical reverse flow from Bulgaria to Greece with the additional installation of a compressor station.
The gas link is estimated to cost 220 million euro ($268.7 million).
The project is being implemented by the joint venture company ICGB, in which state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and Greece-registered IGI Poseidon hold equal shares. Greek public gas corporation DEPA and Italian energy group Edison own 50% each of IGI Poseidon.
($ = 0.8571 euro)