November 18 (SeeNews) - In SOFIA story headlined "South Stream Bulgaria receives seven bids for pipeline construction – media", please read in the headline "LOIs" instead of "bids", in the first paragraph "letters of interest (LOIs)" instead of "bids" and in the second paragraph "candidates" instead of "bidders".
A corrected version follows:
South Stream Bulgaria has received seven letters of interest (LOIs) from consortia willing to take part in the construction of the Bulgarian part of the South Stream pipeline, estimated at 3.5 billion euro ($4.73 billion), local media reported on Monday.
The company did not disclose the names of the candidates for the country's largest-scale project, business newspaper Capital Daily said on Monday. The tie-ups consist of Russian, German, Austrian and Turkish companies, the newspaper added, mentioning Russian company Stroytransgaz as one of the possible candidates as it registered a Bulgarian subsidiary in October. Bulgarian companies Glavbolgarstroy, Energoremont Holding, Advance Engineering, and Vodstroy 98 are the subcontractors, Capital Daily added.
One of the consortia has withdrawn its application due to insufficient time, the newspaper said quoting an unnamed source.
South Stream, initiated by Russia's Gazprom and Italy's Eni, aims to diversify gas routes within the European Union and to provide stable gas supplies from Russia to central and southern Europe. The onshore pipeline will connect Varna on the Black Sea to northern Italy, via Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia.
South Stream is planned to go on stream by the end of 2015 with a pipeline capacity of some 63 billion cubic meters per year.
($=0.741 euro)