The Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor initiative (hereafter referred as NBHC consortium) aims to establish a cross-border hydrogen pipeline connecting Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany. The NBHC initiative is mutually governed in a consortium, which is formed of six consortium partners (hereafter referred as TSOs): Gasgrid Vetyverkot Oy (Finland), Elering AS (Estonia), AS Conexus Baltic Grid (Latvia), AB Amber Grid (Lithuania), Operator Gazociągów Przesyłowych GAZ-SYSTEM S.A (Poland) and ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH (Germany). In this procurement Gasgrid Vetyverkot Oy was the leading procuring entity of the NBHC consortium and referred as The Contracting authority. The buyer organizations other than Gasgrid-group's companies were presented in the Annex 7 of the contract notice.

In this procurement, the Contracting Authority was seeking for one to two (1-2) Suppliers to execute overarching cross-border technical alignment study for the Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor initiative. The main tasks (but not limited to these) of the NBHC consortium Work Package 2: Overarching Cross-Border Technical Alignment Study were:

- Define a set of design values for the corridor pipeline for the use of national design and engineering efforts.

- Provide understanding of the compression needs and operating values.

- Ensure that NBHC Consortium has viable plans for HSE, system safety, regulatory compliance and permitting to ensure the safety and compliance for regulations as a multi-national project.

- Support national design and engineering efforts and cost estimation by standardizing key system concepts at the cross-border points.

The Scope of Work was described in more detailed level in the contract notice and its annexes.

The Scope of Work consisted of three separate parts (1A & 1B, 2 and 3), and the procurement had been divided to two lots as follows:

LOT 1:

- Part 1A: Definition of Initial Design Values

- Part 1B: Initial System Engineering and System Model Setup

- Part 2: Basis of Design for Cross-border Points

LOT 2:

- Part 3: A Study of Applicable Legislation; Regulations and Directives of European Union for Multi-National System Safety, HSE Requirements, Regulatory Compliance and Permitting, Definition of the Related Plans

The Contracting Authority eventually awarded one (1) Supplier per each lot of the procurement. The Candidate had an opportunity to submit a tender for both Lots (LOT 1) and (LOT 2), or just one of the Lots. The Candidate with economically most advantageous tender for each Lot were selected as a Supplier(s). The economic advantageous consisted of price and quality aspects as described in the contract notice, and determined in more detailed level in a later stage of the procurement procedure.

This procurement was conducted as Negotiated procedure according to Act on public contracts and concessions of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors (1398/2016).