Regulator halts disputed 17-bln ruble Gazprom pipeline tender, hearing due April 3
MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Antimonopoly service (FAS) has suspended a Gazprom procurement tender worth 17 billion rubles to build the 191.5-kilometer Pochinki-Anapa stretch of the Southern Corridor following a request by LLC StroyGasConsulting (SGC).
The complaint will be heard on April 3, the regulator said.
CJSC Stroytransgas, which used to be known as CJSC Argus Pipeline and which is half-owned by the Stroytransgas group of companies, belonging to Gennady Timchenko and partners, won the tender, bidding 17.685 billion rubles inclusive of VAT.
SGC, in which Ziyad Manasir has a controlling stake and Ruslan Baisarov 30%, also bid at the tender, offering to build the pipeline section for 16.989 billion rubles, according to one of its representatives. SGC thinks it has more qualified specialists and equipment and extensive experience in pipeline construction. The company says this is not the first time it has lost a Gazprom tender, moreover to the same period of last year CJSC Stroytransgas.
The Kommersant newspaper said at the end of October that Ziyad Manasir had written to Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft and senior secretary of the presidential fuel and energy commission, complaining that Gazprom was delaying the launch of projects and payments related to them. Manasir said, however, that the problems were of "an ordinary, a routine nature" and had already been resolved.
A source at SGC said there was hope the conflict would be resolved at the end of last year, but that tenders had shown this was not to be. The parties have tried diplomatic means to resolve the conflict and it is not clear whether all avenues have been exhausted, but "frustration and misunderstanding have accumulated."
