BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov.14
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) sitting with three judges upheld the decision of the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC), confirming the decision of the project company ICGB AD to select the Greek company Corinth Pipeworks S.A Pipe Industry S.A. as a contractor for the manufacture and supply of line pipes, ICGB AD told Trend.
The same decision eliminates the company Toplivo-2 EOOD from the procedure due to non-compliance of its technical proposal with the requirements of the technical specification for the tender. By decision №15289, the appeal of Toplivo-2 EOOD was finally dismissed and the first instance decision of the CPC was considered lawful and substantiated.
SAC points out that even a single non-compliance in the technical proposal with the conditions of the documentation and requirements of the contracting authority is a sufficient prerequisite for eliminating a participant from the procedure. According to the court, the project company ICGB had clearly stated the reasons for the applicant's dismissal in the report of the committee that evaluated the proposals for the tender. Thus, the claims of Toplivo-2 EOOD were found entirely unfounded and unjustified.
The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.
With SAC’s ruling, the case regarding dismissing Toplivo-2 EOOD is completely closed. This way, ICGB can successfully continue the implementation of the contract for the supply of line pipes, also providing assurance to the financing institutions - the EIB, the Managing Authority in Bulgaria under OPIC and the EC, that there is no doubt regarding the lawful conduct of the procedure.
IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to TAP via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.
The Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria project envisages a two-stage development.
In the first stage, the pipeline capacity will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 2.7 billion cubic meters will be offered for the long-term market, the remaining share of 0.3 billion cubic meters in the short term.
In a second phase, also depending on the evolution of the market, the capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 5.3 billion cubic meters of gas thanks to the addition of a compression station: 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas 0.5 billion cubic meters of short-term gas will be offered for long-term products.
---
Follow the author on Twitter:@Lyaman_Zeyn