By Alexia Cafetzis
Charalambos Ellinas, an expert on hydrocarbons, made shocking revelations regarding the gas terminal project in Vasilikos yesterday. Mr. Ellinas, who spoke to various media outlets, made it known that the company that undertook the project does not have the necessary experience since it has never implemented a similar project before.
As Mr. Ellinas said, he knows the company very well because he worked for it in Africa and its job was to install gas pipelines and not to build terminals. Therefore, he said he has no experience and pointed out that Cyprus is in a difficult position since it will be very difficult to find a replacement company and it will be equally difficult to reach an agreement with the current contractor company. He indicated that the two sides should show consensus and try to find some solution. Mr. Ellinas advised the Government to find an experienced expert on the matter in order to have the necessary life-saving directions, otherwise if there are no average solutions it will cost Cyprus many millions and waste valuable time in the effort to get natural gas.
< p>In his statements, Mr. Ellinas also said that in fact there was no tender for the project. What was done, he said, was the assignment of the project to this particular company. He also revealed that Cyprus will not benefit from the gas from its own fields since it will be piped to Egypt.
In the meantime, what has been widely discussed since yesterday and after the revelations made before the competent committee of the Parliament by former Ministers of Energy, is the fact that during the crucial session where it was decided to assign the terminal to this company, minutes were not kept. So today everyone disclaims responsibility and for a project with hundreds of millions of expenses, no one knows how and why such a decision was made.
In his statements after the Commission, Mr. Papanastasiou said that as a Ministry they have been placed and as a Government “we are concentrating on how we will implement the import of Natural Gas through this terminal, which means to complete the specific terminal, for the floating gasification unit in Cyprus so that both can operate”.
Mr. Papanastasiou said that the floating unit in China is 95% complete, and the specific ship is awaiting certification for two roles, for gasification of Natural Gas and for transporting liquefied Natural Gas.
For the land terminal, the Minister said, which consists of two parts, the platform has started and is 1/3 complete and the facilities on the ground which are 40% complete. Overall, he explained, the project, a floating unit and a land terminal with a jetty, is 70% complete, but that is not enough to operate and serve its purpose.
As a Ministry, he noted, the aim is to complete the terminal so that we can move quickly to the use of natural gas in power generation, which will reduce pollutants by 25-30%, which will mean lower costs for electricity consumers.
Mr. Papanastasiou said that the completion of the terminal can be done either with the same contractor, after the negotiation is done, or the contract should be terminated and the project completed with other solutions. “We should have some developments regarding the matter in the next few days”, he said.
In a comment that in the past he had stated that a painful decision would be to stop working with the manufacturing company, Mr. Papanastasiou said that “painful” was a wrong expression and that it should have been described as “bold” and repeated that the first option is to complete the project by the contracting company and the second, if this is not possible, to terminate the cooperation and be concluded differently.
However, with his latest statements yesterday, Mr. Papanastasiou essentially confirmed that there is currently no communication channel between the company and the Government that would facilitate the conclusion of a consensual solution.< /p>
