Environment Minister Leo Brincat insists the last major incident involving a liquefied natural gas plant occurred 70 years ago even when told about other major cases, including one as recently as 2004 in Algeria.

During a three-hour debate in Parliament on the planned gas-fired power plant in Marsaxlokk, Mr Brincat argued that the Opposition was only intending to alarm people, saying that LNG plants had a very good safety record.

He later tweeted the point raised during the debate that the last major incident dated back to 1944 in the United States.

There is no system that is 100 per cent but the Opposition is depicting the situation as if we were on the eve of another Chernobyl nuclear disaster

However, records show that in 2004 27 people died and 74 were injured in an explosion at an LNG plant in Skikda, 500 kilometres east of the Algerian capital.

Probed yesterday by Times of Malta whether it had been slightly presumptuous of him to make such a claim, the minister argued that his point was to highlight the fact that oil or fuel-powered plants had a much worse safety track record than those using LNG.

“There is no system that is 100 per cent but the Opposition is depicting the situation as if we were on the eve of another Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” Mr Brincat said.

He added that calls by PN deputy leader Mario de Marco not to create unnecessary alarm had fallen on deaf ears. Asked whether he had been too categorical in his claim and whether he had been aware that other major LNG-related incidents had happened, he insisted that the most recent incident went back 70 years.

“My only interest was to show that the safety record of LNG plants is the best when compared to others,” Mr Brincat said, acknowledging that he was not involved in the business and had no vested interests in the debate.

Major LNG incidents since 1944

As many as six major LNG explosions occurred between 1973 and 2012.

• The most recent killed five men when an LNG tanker exploded in China’s Hunan province in 2012.

• In 2005, an LNG installation pipe exploded in Nigeria resulting in a fire engulfing an estimated 27 square kilometres at a fishing community.

• Twenty-three people died in a blast in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge in 2004.

• Also in 2004, 27 people died and 74 were hurt when an LNG vapour cloud burst into flames in Skikda, Algeria.

• In 1979, a gas leak caused a blast that killed one employee and seriously injured another in Maryland, USA.

• Thirty-seven construction workers died in Staten Island, in the US, when a fire started in a storage tank in 1973.

• The “last major incident” Mr Brincat mentioned occurred in Cleveland, Ohio in 1944 and had killed 128 people. Liquefied gas spilled out of a tanker and on to the streets and sewers before exploding.

Pipelines can also cause serious incidents. About 80 small and large accidents were reported to have occurred in US LNG pipelines in 2012. No one died but they cost an estimated €44 million.

In 2010, an LNG pipeline exploded in San Bruno, California. It killed eight people and destroyed more than 30 houses.