With a length of approx. 3.300 km, the Nabucco Gas Pipeline is among the longest pipelines in the world. The Nabucco Pipeline is designated to serve as a transit and transport pipeline and runs from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. The projects main goal is the establishment of a pipeline system that will connect several gas reserves in the Caspian Region and the Middle East to Europe.

The Nabucco Gas Pipeline is owned and operated by the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH (hereafter NIC) and consists of 6 Shareholders: BOTAS (Turkey), Bulgarien Energie Holding (Bulgaria), Transgaz (Romania), MOL (Hungary), OMV (Austria) and RWE (Germany).

TÜV Rheinland supported NIC during the prequalification phase for suppliers of Long Lead Items. Furthermore TÜV Rheinland reviewed and verified the material specifications which have been prepared by the owner’s engineer.

During the prequalification process NIC aspired to identify the most capable suppliers for the Nabucco Gas Pipeline project, by evaluating technical competences, quality and performance ability.

Companies have been preselected during the “desktop study” on basis of technical and commercial criteria. Those companies found capable have been audited on site. Within a tight schedule, TÜV Rheinland audited 73 vendor sites in 20 different countries. TÜV Rheinland was able to manage this logistic challenge due to its worldwide presence in 61 countries on all continents and profited from its international network of inspectors to ensure the requested high quality.

As the processes traceability was of special significance for NIC, TÜV Rheinland prepared an absolutely traceable and non discriminating evaluation model to prevent any kind of claims within the prequalification phase.As a result TÜV Rheinland identified all capable suppliers of Long Lead Items, the top performing companies and potential risks which might occur during production.

Finally, the prequalification process provides valuable information for both the procurement and the subsequent production process.