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 is the leading procuring entity of the NBHC consortium and referred as The Contracting authority. The buyer organizations other than Gasgrid-group's companies have been presented in the Annex 7.

In this procurement, the Contracting Authority is 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 are:

- 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 has described in more detailed level in this contract notice and its annexes, especially in the Preliminary Scope of Work (annex 4).

The Scope of Work consist of three separate parts (1A & 1B, 2 and 3), and the procurement has 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 will eventually award one (1) Supplier per each lot of the procurement. The Candidate may submit a tender for both Lots (LOT 1) and (LOT 2), or just one of the Lots. The Candidate may eventually be selected to perform both Lots in case that will be the outcome of the final tender scoring. The Candidate with economically most advantageous tender for each Lot will be selected as a Supplier(s). The economic advantageous consist of price and quality aspects as described in this contract notice, and determined in more detailed level in a later stage of the procurement procedure.

This procurement is 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).