Government will miss March 2015 deadline - Mizzi

Dissett March 2014 • Muscat 'I will resign if power station is not delivered within established time-frames'

A delay in the construction of the new power plant – originally scheduled for March 2015 – is due to the the reopening of negotiations with power plant suppliers Electrogas, with new Enemalta shareholders Shanghai Electric Power (SEP).

Insiders have told MaltaToday that the agreement with the Electrogas consortium had to be revised when SEP acquired a 33% stake in Enemalta plc in March 2014, and became the owners of the Delimara power station extension.

Yesterday, energy minister Konrad Mizzi also confirmed with this newspaper that the construction of the new gas-fired power station in Delimara would not be completed by March 2015.

But he said that the energy tariff reductions for businesses would come into force as pledged.

News of the delay is set to turn into a new headache for Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who had publicly claimed he would resign if his government does not deliver the power station within the timeframes it had set for itself.

On 11 April 2013, Enemalta issued an Expression of Interest and Capability (EoIC) for a power purchase and gas supply agreement, binding candidates to build and operate a new LNG plant by 31 March 2015.

Shortly after Electrogas was chosen to build the new plant, Chinese company Shanghai Electric Power purchased the ‘BWSC plant’ for €300 million.

Read the full report in MaltaToday