The Minister for Energy doesn’t know where he is heading, nor does he know when he will get there. The Prime Minister should be worried that Malta’s most crucial commodity for the survival of the lives of 400,000 inhabitants and their fragile economy is in the hands of a dilettante.
Irrespective of how much propaganda we are being fed, it is a fact that Konrad Mizzi has hit a brick wall because his 24-month project has not even started.
There are no two ways about this. This is not about a delay in a project. It is about an electoral promise that swept the Labour Party to victory not even started, let alone completed, in 24 months.
It is clear that Mizzi’s idea of an LNG power station, land-based regasifier and 140,000 cubic metres of floating liquid fuel storage is a no-brainer.
He persists to adopt the worst possible scenario both from an operational risk as well as from an economic viewpoint. We have all heard about how huge the ‘naval risk’ is for Mizzi’s option.
Not long ago, this risk was demonstrated during a storm when a ship lost its moorings and started to drift out of its berth into Marsaxlokk Bay. Tugboats saved the day but the situation would have been different had LNG been stored there.
Even if the storage vessel will be protected by the jetty, the shuttle’s manoeuvres when entering harbour, turning and then berthing for unloading alongside the wharf present a very considerable risk of collision due to other naval traffic.
A relevant detailed risk study has, until today, not been made available for scrutiny and this study may well require a form of protection for the shuttle’s berthing area.
It is inevitable that, for the new Delimara power station, the following investments have to be made: the onshore regasifier, the jetty for the storage unit and the protection dolphins for the natural gas shuttle servicing the storage ship. These costs run into tens of millions and all will have to be written off if Malta connects to mainland Europe to import natural gas via a pipeline.
The expense will have to covered through the billing rates of consumers even if they are written off because of the pipeline.
Mizzi has not given any consideration whatsoever to the option of an offshore FSRU (floating storage and regasification unit) despite it increasing in popularity among the people of the south.
With the interconnector option, Konrad Mizzi will gain time to commission an FSRU temporary solution
The FSRU is moored 12 nautical miles offshore with the consequent substantial reduction of risks (potentially to the extent of a national disaster) resulting from things going astray with the storage facility in the Marsaxlokk Bay.
The unit can be leased directly or provided by a possible concessionaire. There is a worldwide market for this option as, often, the FSRU is used temporarily until permanent installations such as pipeline networks are available. The recent experience in Italy is nothing but a perfect example for us to emulate.
The FSRU option has no requirement for a jetty and additional protection dolphins for the natural gas shuttles entering Marsaxlokk every month.
This option does not need an onshore regasifier. The only special investment required is a 12-mile submarine supply pipeline from the FSRU to the power station at considerably lower investment costs to the option Mizzi is stubbornly advocating.
Tests in Italy have illustrated that, with the FSRU option, the transfer of natural gas from the shuttle vessel to the FSRU may continue even at wave heights of 3.5 metres. The actual pumping of natural gas from the FSRU to the shore-based buffer tanks may continue even with higher wave heights due to the wave tolerance of the single buoy mooring to which the FSRU will be anchored.
Mizzi knows that the Malta-Sicily interconnector is there and should be commissioned in earnest. This interconnector can still guarantee low priced electric power from Nordic countries to Malta in the immediate term.
With this option, Mizzi will gain time to commission an FSRU temporary solution and concurrently start work on the permanent gas pipeline between Malta and mainland Europe.
This is the only viable solution with the least possible risk for Mizzi to introduce LNG in this legislature. This arrangement will save him and his party the ongoing embarrassment that has engulfed them these past six weeks for missing out on promised deadlines.
Mizzi will only have one problem to deal with if he goes for this option. His task will be to find an amicable arrangement of breaking the political commitment made in the run-up to the election with his crony political power station developers.
George Pullicino is Opposition spokesman on energy and water conservation.