Prime Minister Joseph Muscat all but confirmed that the new gas-fired power station will not be operational in March but insisted businesses will still get reduced electricity bills.

Tariff reductions averaging 25 per cent were not dependent on the gas plant becoming operational in March next year, he added.

“Our plan to reduce energy costs does not depend exclusively on the new power station being operational in March but forms part of a holistic plan that is in place,” Dr Muscat said.

The Prime Minister was asked about the deadline yesterday after visiting the De La Rue factory in Bulebel, where he told employees that lower electricity tariffs for industry would help their company cut costs.

He insisted the pledge to cut utility tariffs by an average of 25 per cent for businesses in March would be upheld. Households benefited from a similar tariff reduction this year.

In its pre-electoral presentation, the Labour Party had said that electricity reductions would have been possible as a result of a plan that included the construction of a new 200MW power station fired by natural gas and a liquefied natural gas terminal financed by the private sector.

In the pre-election presentation, Dr Muscat said the power station and related infrastructure would be operational within two years of the election, a time frame deemed ambitious by political observers at the time.

In April last year, Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi had said the government was committed to have the facility up and running by the spring of 2015, which gave the government a leeway of a couple more months.

However, doubts have been cast on the feasibility of the deadline since very little visible work has been carried out on the construction sites within the Delimara power station complex.

The new infrastructure is to be built by Electrogas, a private consortium that will eventually sell electricity to Enemalta, and apart from building a power station, the company has to build a re-gassificator – to turn LNG into gaseous form – and a jetty where an LNG tanker will be permanently moored as a storage facility.

The government is committed to shift power generation to the much cleaner natural gas, including converting the newest of the generation units, the BWSC plant, to run on gas.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com