Government submitted plans for off-shore gas storage in 2012

Report by Jacob Borg

The proposals for a Liquified Natural Gas Terminal as announced by Labour on Tuesday morning had already been proposed to the EU by the government in 2012.

The government had submitted the proposal to the European Commission under the heading "Floating LNG Terminal in Malta and new interconnection from Sicily to Malta."

The project description reads, "Floating LNG storage and the re-gasification unit to be connected to the Delimara power station and to build a new 150 km gas interconnection between Malta and Italy (Sicily) with a capacity of 75 TBTU.

The finance ministry probably submitted the project, however the proposal did not include a planned date of completion. The cut off point for submission of projects submitted to be considered as potential projects of common interest in energy infrastructure was 4 October 2012.

Projects identified as being of "common interest in energy infrastructure" will be eligible for EU co-financing under the Connecting Europe Facility (CET), a fund with a proposed budget of €50 billion and set to enter force in 2014.

In so far as financing projects identified as 'Projects of Common Interest,' apart from the potential use of the CET, four options have been analysed by the European Commission.

"Use of risk sharing instruments (including project bonds and guarantees); use of risk capital instruments (including equity participations); use of grant support for project studies and construction; a combination of grants, risk sharing and "risk capital instruments."