May 13 (SeeNews) - ICGB, the project company developing the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, said it has selected Greece's Corinth Pipeworks Industry to supply line pipes for the project under a 58.2 million euro ($65.4 million) contract.
"After a detailed technical evaluation, including on-site visits at each of the participants' factories, it was found that the technical proposal of the participant Corinth Pipeworks Industry S.A. fully complies with the technical specification, including demonstration of advantages that significantly enhance the minimum requirements of the Contracting Entity," ICGB said in a statement on Saturday.
The contract will have a one-year term, with first deliveries expected within four months of its signing.
The public procurement procedure attracted offers from 11 candidates, three of which were invited to participate in the second phase - Corinth Pipeworks Industry, Turkey's Erciyas Celik Boru Sanayi and Bulgaria's Toplivo-2.
The pre-selection was disputed by Turkey's Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi before the Commission for Protection of Competition, but the Bulgarian anti-trust authority decided against opening proceedings regarding the complaint. However, the tender was suspended from the submission of the complaint until the regulator's decision, which forced ICGB to extend the deadline for submitting bids.
Erciyas Celik Boru Sanayi subsequently announced that it can not extend the validity of its offer and was excluded from participation, while Toplivo-2's technical proposal did not fully meet the requirements of the technical specification and the company's offer was not admitted to technical evaluation.
The IGB pipeline, which has a total estimated cost of some 220 million euro, 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 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 stakes. Greek public gas corporation DEPA and Italian energy group Edison own 50% each of IGI Poseidon.
($ = 0.8901 euro)