Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi this morning sought to justify the government's decision to stagger a reduction in fuel prices, saying that was necessary to avoid cash flow problems in Enemed - the entity responsible for fuel purchasing.
He said further reductions in petrol and diesel prices will be announced next month and in April.
Addressing social partners during an MCESD meeting this morning he said that a new fuel procurement hedging agreement was signed some two weeks ago, before prices started rising again and savings are being made.
He said last January the government opted to intervene by reducing prices by 4c as pump prices were higher than those in the international markets.
However he pointed out that during 2014 average prices in Malta were still below EU average, till December when prices converged.
The Energy Minister said that Enemed was not seeking to do "abnormal profits" from fuel and so would not push prices above the minimum levels established by the regulator.
He said he was not against publishing hedging agreements, but only once they had expired, because of commercial reasons.
Referring to the recent controversy, Dr Mizzi insisted that Enemed does not have a monopoly in the fuel sector. He said there were five other importers in the sector. Nothing, he said, prevented other operators from setting different pump prices as part of the competitive environment.
Dr Mizzi said that now that the agreements for the building of the new power station were in place, Enemalta would focus on power distribution. It would be investing €20 million over the next two years to beef up distribution by building new distribution centres at Manoel Island and St Andrews. The work on the distribution centre would not have been possible without the investment by Shanghai Electric in Enemalta, he said.
The Chinese company will have two directors (out of six) on the Enemalta Board. It would also nominate the assistant financial control and the assistant director (distribution) because of concerns they had had about cuts in distribution.
He said that in the coming weeks testing would start as part of a process to switch all power generation to Delimara, keeping Marsa power out.
He said testing of the Sicily-Malta interconnector has started.
The pile foundations of the new quay forming part of the new power station in Delimara will be laid in April. The gas facility will be moored to it. The power station will be commissioned in June next year. The power station equipment is currently being built in Sweden.
RENEWABLE ENERGY TARGETS
On the target for Malta to have 10% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, Dr Mizzi said wind farms were not considered feasible. Malta aimed to achieve half of its target from PV panels, 22 per cent from bio fuels and the rest from waste-to-energy and biomass.
EU DATA
Meanwhile, the EU today issued data showing Malta as the most dependant on imports for its electricity.
The highest energy dependence rates were registered in Malta (104,0%), Luxembourg (96.9%), Cyprus (96.4%) and Ireland (89.1%).
Among the five Member States consuming the largest amounts of energy, the least dependent on energy imports were the United Kingdom (46.4%) and France (47.9%). Those countries are heavy users of wind and nuclear energy, with Britain also having its own oil and coal.