Bulgarian state-owned natural gas transmission system operator Bulgartransgaz announced that it has awarded the contract for the construction of gas interconnection with Serbia to a consortium led by Glavbolgarstroy (GBS). The contract was initially awarded to Canpipe BG, but it later decided to withdraw from the competition.
The statement from the operator said that the offer of the GBS consortium was assessed to have the best quality-to-price ratio among all received bids. GBS proposed to build the gas pipeline connecting Bulgaria and Serbia for a price of 85.8 million euros, while Canpipe BG proposed a price of 84 million euros.
In June, Bulgartransgaz announced that the offer of Canpipe BG is ranked first in the tender for the construction of a Bulgarian section of gas interconnection with Serbia. The statement from the company said that Canpipe BG, a local company established by Canadian Canpipe Industries International Inc, received an overall score of 97.79 points in the tender.
However, CPC has suspended the tender due to a number of complaints against the selection of local company Canpipe BG as contractor in the project. The statement from the Commission said that the project does not meet the criteria of urgency that would justify the awarding of the public procurement contract to the selected candidate before the Commission has issued its final ruling on the complaints. In August, CPC rejected all complaints and upheld Bulgartransgaz’ decision to award the contract to Canpipe BG consortium.
The project for gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Serbia envisages the construction of gas pipeline with the annual capacity of 1.8 billion cubic meters of gas. Length of the Bulgarian section of the pipeline, stretching from the border to capital Sofia, is 62 kilometers.
