Recently we have had a loud debate, accompanied by much comment, on the placing of the LNG storage for Delimara Power Station (DPS). The current proposal is to have a 160,000m3 tanker moored at a new quay at DPS, feeding an on-shore re-gasification unit. A first Risk Assessment (RA), admitted by all sides not to be the last word in RA, has been made. It concluded that serious accident probability was one in 10,000 years.
As would have been expected, the proposal was subjected to a crossfire of objections and suggested alternatives, some sensible, some less so and some bereft of any sense.
The request for a more refined and tighter RA is certainly justified. The project managers’ response that this will be done once the environment permit (EP) has been issued shows little appreciation of people’s anxieties. At that point any RA “refinements” will only serve to bolster the original conclusion, not to overturn it. From the other side, objecting that however small the probability “a serious accident can still happen” logically requires that some assessment method other than a RA be used, given that a RA, however detailed, can only deliver a “probability”.
Someone, within the completely wild suggestion that the “new” DPS be sited at Ħal-Far, fell back on the use of Ħal-Far for the LNG storage. But unless the re-gasification unit is taken there as well that would create an engineering nightmare. Yet even if it were, the docking of the replenishment tanker at the Freeport, the LNG transfer to the tanks at least a kilometre from the quay, and the presence of other fuels (LPG and oil) in the vicinity, would probably make it a high-risk solution.
A proposal to moor a storage/re-gasification unit outside Marsaxlokk was made at the first Mepa public session on LNG Delimara, before the tender was awarded. The practicality of the proposal is now much diminished, as the storage ship chosen has no place for a re-gasification unit. The FSU will have to be turned into a FSRU, i.e. a floating storage unit with re-gasification on board.
Enemalta, after saying that the supply could be endangered with a FSRU moored at sea, has said that there is neither the time nor the money to go for that solution. But time especially, was “fixed” in the heady days of an election campaign. It may be wise to re-consider, though the acquisition of a FSRU may well add on 18-24 months to start-up time; but that is not very much seeing ElectroGas are going to be with us for 18 years.
Money for the FSRU, now that the tender has been awarded, may be harder to come by. On the other hand, we could tap some of the expected bonanza from the IIP for that purpose. That would give some real substance to all the trumpeting about the benefits IIP is going to provide for us all.
How about it Mr Prime Minister?