Public procurement notice: Contract Award Notice
Published: 2022-07-26
Buyer: Gasgrid Finland Oy
Country: FI
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 34516000 | 34951000 | 39340000 | 42130000 | 42131000
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Products and Services in Connection with Charter of the FSRU Vessel and Establishment of a Floating LNG Terminal
Products and services which are urgently needed in order for a Finnish procurement entity to be able to operate the FSRU Vessel in Finland.
Products and Services related to Charter of the FSRU Vessel and Establishment of a Floating LNG Terminal. The products include loading arms, gas pipes, fender systems,  steel valves, elbows and pipeline components, gangway tower and access ladder. The services include procurement planning and advisory, technical and engineering planning and design, project leadership, permit applications, loading arm modifications, marine analysis, port and fairway planning, vessel planning and testing.
As stated in the legislation (1398/2016, as amended, Section 43), and Directive 2004/17/EC (2014/25/EU, Article 50), direct awards are allowed when specific circumstances apply. The awards were strictly necessary due to reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting entity, war in Ukraine, as well as significant public interest which seriously jeopardizes national security of supply of gas. The Ministry of Finance tasked  the chartering an LNG terminal ship and implementing the project as fast as possible to guarantee preparedness and security of gas supply. Similarly in Market Court in case MAO:101/21 there was urgent new information, and the direct award was allowed.
The time limits could not be complied with. Tendering competitions would have required several months of preparation. Due to lack of suitable vessels in the market, procurements without delay were strictly necessary.
These procurements have been classified as necessary for the security of supply by the Finnish National Emergency Supply Agency. The circumstances invoked to justify extreme urgency are not in any way attributable to the contracting entity. The situation is due to war, sanctions, as well as urgent risks to security of supply. On 21 May 2022 Russia stopped delivering natural gas to Finland.
According to Communication from the Commission (public procurement framework in the emergency situation related to the COVID-19 crisis, 2020/C 108 I/01), “the EU directives do not contain procedural constraints for a situation such as the current COVID-19 crisis which presents an extreme and unforeseeable urgency. -Authorities can act as quickly as is technically/physically feasible – and the procedure may constitute a de facto direct award only subject to physical/technical constraints related to the actual availability and speed of delivery. - Increase in the demand of similar goods, products and services coupled with a significant disruption of the supply chain, it may be physically/technically impossible to procure using even the fastest available procedures.” The war in Ukraine is fully comparable with the COVID-19 crisis in its unforeseeability and extreme urgency. It would have been impossible to arrange tendering competitions, even expedited, as time would have been required for drafting the tenders.
The Commission stated in its earlier (8 August 2015) Communication relating to the refugee crisis in 2015 that the prerequisites of extreme urgency may be fulfilled by the sudden increase in the number of refugees.
Market Court stated in case MAO:102/21 regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, “even if the contracting entity had had time to negotiate with other tenderers, it might have taken so much time to organize the negotiations and ensure equal treatment of tenderers that the procurement could not have been carried out within the required timeframe. Due to the principles of Article 3(1) of the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts, when negotiating with more than one tenderer, the contracting entity should have ensured that the tenderers invited to negotiate were treated in a non-discriminatory manner and that, in addition, the contracting entity should have made a reasoned and non-discriminatory choice between the tenderers who participated in the negotiations. All of these steps can be considered to have taken time to complete. The conduct of negotiations with several tenderers in such a way as to enable the contract to be concluded and the contractual supplies to be started within the time constraints imposed by the case of extreme urgency may be regarded as having entailed a risk of the proper performance of the essential and urgent contract in question.”
30 days after this notice has been published. Please see Section 147 of the Act on Public Procurement on Concession Contracts (1397/2016) and Act on Procurement by Entities Operating in the Water, Energy, Transport and Postal Service Sectors (1398/2016).


Winner: Ramboll Finland Oy
Number of bids: 1