EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation, Railways

Talgo today was surprised about the statement of Pasazieru Vilciens on the results of reasessment of the bid submitted by Skoda in the procurement procedure that followed the decision of the Procurement Monitoring Bureau. The tender closed last November and Talgo was announced the winner with the best price for supply of trains, the best technologyu and the best energy consumption offer.

The price offered by Talgo – EUR 225 mln – was by EUR 16 mln lower than the price offered by Skoda.

Talgo has considered all possible ways of further action and will turn into the respective institutions to appeal the tender results announced on Friday to defend not only the company’s interests, but also interests of Latvia’s tax payers. Talgo will release its statement in the coming days.

As reported, on reassessing the bids submitted in its train supply tender, Latvia’s Pasazeru Vilciens rail passenger carrier has decided to purchase the electric trains from the Czech company Skoda Vagonka, the company’s CEO Rodzers Grigulis told journalists Friday.

The contract price will be EUR 241.888.

Grigulis said that the winner of the tender was changed because Pasazieru Vilciens heeded the Public Procurement Monitoring Bureau’s advice to consider a different electricity price. The new lifecycle cost analysis showed that the offer of Skoda Vagonka was more economical. The participants of the tender were not allowed to change their bids during the reassessment.

Grigulis indicated that the tender’s original winner, Spanish company Patentes Talgo S.L. (Talgo), had offered to supply the trains for a lower price but that the maintenance costs offered by Skoda Vagonka for the trains’ 35-year lifecycle were lower, which meant lower overall costs.

The procurement commission’s latest decision can still be appealed within ten days plus one workday. “If there are no appeals, the contract will be concluded with Skoda Vagonka,” Grigulis said.

Previously, Pasazieru Vilciens declared Spain’s Talgo the winner of the train tender, but the Public Procurement Monitoring Bureau banned Pasazieru Vilciens from concluding the contract with this company and ordered the rail company to invalidate the results of its electric train tender.

As reported, Spanish company Talgo won the tender to supply new passenger trains to Pasazieru Vilciens for EUR 225,303,262. The contract price included delivery of the trains and the equipment necessary for their maintenance, spare parts for the first five years and training of the personnel.

Pasazieru Vilciens CEO Rodzers Janis Grigulis said that the bid submitted by the Spanish company was economically the most feasible for the train’s projected service life of 35 years. Asked about the prices offered by other bidders, Grigulis said that the next best offer had been EUR 20 mln costlier.

Pasazieru Vilciens in September 2015 started a new tender to purchase electric trains, and four bidders had advanced to the second stage of the tender – Spanish company Talgo, Polish subsidiary of Swiss company Stadler, Spanish company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles S.A. (CAF), and Czech company Skoda Vagonka.

Skoda Vagonka and CAF have both appealed the outcome of the train supply tender.

Pasazieru Vilciens was established in 2001 to separate domestic passenger services from other functions performed by the state-owned Latvijas Dzelzcels (Latvian Railway). Although initially Pasazieru Vilciens was a 100-percent owned subsidiary of the Latvian Railway, in October 2008 it was transformed into an independent state-owned company.