February 14 (SeeNews) - Bulgartransgaz said on Thursday it has suspended its tender for construction of a 484 km gas pipeline from compressor station Nova Provadia to the border with Serbia, worth an estimated 2.29 billion levs ($1.3 billion/1.2 billion euro), VAT excluded.
The procedure was suspended over a complaint filed with the Commission for Protection of Competition by local power plant equipment maintenance and repair services company Atomenergoremont, the state-owned Bulgarian gas transmission system operator said in a statement.
In its complaint, Atomenergoremont has challenged Bulgargaz' clarifications on issues raised by persons interested in participating in the procedure.
Bulgartransgaz's clarifications cover 15 questions by interested parties, mainly related to how the contract will be financed and the payment time frame.
Tendering will be resumed if the competition regulator denies Atomenergoremont's request for suspension of the tender or if it rules in Bulgartransgaz' favor at the end of the proceedings.
Subsequently, Bulgartransgaz will have to extend the deadline for submitting offers, taking into consideration for how long the procedure was suspended.
The tender is part of a larger project for building new infrastructure for transit of natural gas to Europe through a branch of TurkStream pipeline that will cross Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.
At the end of last month, Bulgartransgaz successfully completed the binding Phase 3 of the economic test for the project.
Russia's Gazprom plans to build a string of its TurkStream pipeline for transit of gas to Europe from Turkey via Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary. The TurkStream offshore gas pipeline, stretching 930 km across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey, consists of two parallel strings with annual throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic metres of gas each. One string is intended for consumers in Turkey, while the second will carry gas to customers in Europe.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)