So far the Government is on track with its major commitment in the electoral programme. That was to revolutionise the energy generation process and lay the groundwork for tariffs to be substantially reduced. Never-on-Sunday was discarded and last Sunday Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi announced that the Government has selected the consortium which will be entrusted to build a gas-fired power plant and related gas-handling infrastructure.

The consortium is very international and also contains substantial Maltese flavour. This is provided by Germ Holdings in which the Tumas and Gasan groups combine to take up 30 per cent in the consortium, styled Electro Gas Malta. On the basis of an 18-year agreement, during the first years of which electricity should be supplied at a fixed cost, the rest of the consortium is made up of German firm Siemens, and the commodities trading arm of Azerbaijan’s state energy firm Socar.

The outstanding question at the moment is: will the demanding project be completed in time to meet the self-imposed Government deadline of 15 months? That’s a very tall order but the administration continues to exude confidence that it will meet the timetable – or rather, that the suppliers will do so.

Meanwhile the Government, as the Finance Minister will confirm in his Budget Speech, will also meet its promise to reduce domestic consumer tariffs by 25 per cent come March next year.

It will be able to do so with a payment of €30 million which the consortium will make to buy Enemalta’s subsidiary company, Malta Power and Gas, set up earlier this year in the context of the planning process.

It is not known how much slashing consumer tariffs by a quarter will cost. It should be within €30 million. Enemalta will be able to sustain that loss of income only if the plans to have everything in place within 15 months’ time are met. A year later energy tariffs should also be cut for commercial and industrial consumers.

In jumping the gun this way the Government is showing its conviction that the plans being put in place are foolproof. A spokesman for the Maltese element of the consortium, Yorgen Fenech of the Tumas Group, told The Sunday Times of Malta that a floating gas storage depot was the best option to ensure that the company could meet the tight deadlines imposed by the Government.

It is reassuring that equity holder Siemens, a German giant, will be entrusted with the engineering and construction of the facilities and will be the project leader. It may also be reassuring that the Azerbaijan group recently bought a 66 per cent stake in the gas distribution network that also includes a liquefied gas terminal.

Mr Fenech opined that this gives Socar a strong presence in the Mediterranean. An LNG terminal controlled by one of the consortium partners is located a day’s sailing away from Malta.

Indicating, as expected, that the consortium has done its homework it was revealed that it has already secured financing of its plans from four banks, including Bank of Valletta and HSBC Malta.

Will these plans generate new employment? The construction phase may do that. Longer term the Energy Minister said that Enemalta personnel would be deployed by the new providers, though they will retain the conditions they enjoy with Enemalta.

As usual the project will not be without political controversy. True to the totally negative nature the Nationalist Opposition has developed in recent weeks, its leader, Simon Busuttil, immediately stepped forward to criticise aspects of the project. He also said that the Opposition will be waiting to see the details before making a deeper assessment.

That is how it should be. It isn’t the only the Opposition which should scrutinise the project: its outcome will be predictably negative. Others able to do so should dissect the project to see whether it holds together.

Objective criticism will benefit the Government, as much as unduly negative Opposition criticism will lose it credibility, as happened in the run-up to the general election.

One good thing about the new project is that the Government will not be involved in its execution. There will not be, for instance, a laborious tendering process subject to legal spokes in the wheel by unsuccessful bidders.

No doubt there will be tough negotiations by the consortium and these have probably started in anticipation of the bidding result. That is as it should be. The project has to be executed as economically as possible. Costs have to be controlled from the word go.

Assuming that the project stays on course it will be interesting to see, as the years roll by, what technical innovation there will be in the gas industry and how change can and will be incorporated in the programme.

Eighteen years is a long time and a lot can happen over that span.

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