Eight months to build the gas power station is “a tight deadline” but much depends on how the project is structured, according to a former Enemalta chairman.
Robert Ghirlando, an engineer, insisted he had always believed the time frames for delivering a gas-fired power station and facilities that handled liquefied natural gas were optimistic.
The government had promised the power station would be delivered within two years of winning the election, targeting March 2015 as the date for completion.“Apart from the civil works on site there are also steel works that have to be done but everything depends on whether the power station will come in prefabricated modules that would simply be positioned on site,” Prof. Ghirlando said.
There were many factors at play that determined how fast a project could be delivered, including whether the designs were completed and steel works already under way, he added.
“There are too many factors of which we know nothing about that can determine the pace of a project,” Prof. Ghirlando said.
His views are shared by Michael Falzon, an architect and former Nationalist Party minister responsible for the construction of the Delimara power station in the early 1990s.
Having been sceptical about the time frame set by the Labour Party when it announced its power plan during the election campaign last year, Mr Falzon insisted the deadline was “very, very tight”.
A lot of bureaucracy can be cut – engineer
“I always thought two years was not a feasible target... but one has to keep in mind that the project is not Enemalta’s, which means a lot of bureaucracy can be cut,” Mr Falzon said.
He also noted that the inclusion of Siemens in the consortium meant the equipment was being built by the company itself, which could save on time.
A structural engineer, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the time frame with only eight months to go “sounded like a pretty short period of time”.
He estimated that at least three months would be required to prepare the foundations but another major factor would be the design of the jetty and whether land had to be reclaimed from the sea.
The consortium that will build and operate the power station is confident the project will be delivered on time. A spokesman for Gasol, the lead company in the consortium, told this newspaper last month the timeline for completion was “unchanged and remained feasible”.
The consortium includes Azerbaijan State oil company Socar, Germany’s Siemens and Gem Holdings of Malta.
Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi last week said works on the site had started with the company drilling holes as part of preparations for the foundations.
Concerns over the timeline have been fuelled by what appears to be no visible work being carried out on the Delimara site where the power plant, a regassificator unit and jetty are to be built.
A graphic taken from Gasol’s website, which depicts the advantages of a floating regassification unit, shows it is faster to deliver than an onshore plant.
The Malta project is a mix of the two options: a floating storage unit – an LNG carrier that will be used for the purpose – and an onshore regassificator.
But even if the Malta project were to opt for a completely floating solution, by Gasol’s own calculations it would still take between 12 and 14 months to become operational.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com