Power station due in March; contract signed last Friday
The government’s contract with the Azerbaijani-Maltese consortium that will be building a new gas-fired power station was finally signed last Friday and kept secret from the press (and hence, the public).
The story was in Times of Malta’s print edition (and e-paper) yesterday.
The Malta Independent reports today:
Dr Busuttil referred to a TV debate he took part in, alongside Joseph Muscat and accused the Prime Minister of playing with words.
“The PM first said that the contract to build the new gas-fired power station has not been signed, but when faced with a newspaper report he admitted that the contract has in fact been signed.
This only means that the PM signed the contract behind closed doors. He called a full-blown press conference to announce a 2 cent reduction in the price of petrol but when it came to a €400 million contract the government chose to keep the whole thing a secret.”
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The agreement is for 18 years. The prices are fixed for 5 years.
What is going to happen to the prices in the sixth year?
Prices will go up to make up for the 5-year fixed rate.
It depends who’s in government after five years.
Basically Muscat will hold Enemalta to ransom: I stay in government, I get you cheap rates. You boot me out, I make sure you get expensive rates.
La Redoute is right.
Prices will shoot up in the sixth year, and again in the seventh, and the eighth, right up until the end of the contract.
Apparently, Enemalta will be bound by contract to buy the gas from the private consortium. That creates a monopolistic situation from year 6 to year 18, with the consortium setting the price and Enemalta being bound to buy the gas at that price.
So my question is this: From year 6 to year 18, can Enemalta buy gas from elsewhere if it can get more advantageous prices from other suppliers?
If the answer is no, then this agreement is madness.
The PN must promise that if it is elected to power the power purchase agreement will be revised in a way that the consortium will have to keep its original selling price to Enemalta for another 5 years. If it can be done for the first 5 why not for the second 5 years?
Ok there’s an agreement involved but surely this agreement is based on pure political opportunism and manipulations.
This is the largest contract (by a long long way) in the history of Maltese governments. An urgent press conference for a 2-cent petrol reduction and a secret contract for Malta’s biggest ever commitment from Malta’s ‘transparent’ government.
Sorry, but Joseph Muscat is on record that the power station would have been ready within 2 years of him taking office (and never mentioned anything about the LNG tanker), and Konrad Mizzi is on record that the prices would have been fixed for 10 years.
They rubbished anyone who argued that what they were promising is not realistic. Now what?
Didn’t Muscat say he would resign if the power station is not ready in two years after his 2013 victory?
Before the general election, wasn’t Labour saying they can fix the price for 15 years?
What happened since then? How did it now drop to 5 years? What a mess.
It is amply clear that the government is afraid of the media and their questions on this subject. There must be something they are hiding.
Remind us who the Maltese are in this consortium please.
Newspaper headlines should have screamed: PM caught lying. He lied yesterday. Blatantly. And he was caught and try to cover up but it was too late. As the Italians so eloquently put it: lies have short legs.
John Dalli has been uncharacteristically silent and out of sight for some considerable time now. What are the odds that the new power station will pop up on a barge over the horizon one morning early in 2015?
That is what will be happening, Min Jaf. It won’t be long before we see it being dragged in Marsaxlokk port to be installed as plan.
If the contract has indeed been signed, can we see the proof?
A reliable source informed me that Peppi Azzopardi has convened an urgent meeting of Xarabank heads to prepare for a programme on the Power Station Agreement costing Four Hundred Million Euro signed last Friday in secrecy.The Prime Minister and Energy Minister have been invited.
So for a 2 cents (8 mils of LM currency) a press conference wasting the time of journalists is held and this done in silence.
Newsbook.com.mt jinsab infurmat li x-xogħol fuq l-interconnector tal-elettriku bejn Malta u Sqallija mistenni li jkun lest lejn tmiem is-sena, x’aktarx lejn l-aħħar ta’ Ottubru.
L-interconnector, twil 95 kilometru f’qiegħ il-baħar, se jkun qed jipprovdi aktar minn 200MW ta’ enerġija filwaqt li l-Korporazzjoni Enemalta tista’ tikkunsidra li tikkummissjona t-tieni interconnector.
Dan jista’ jibda jopera lejn tmiem l-2015.
http://www.newsbook.com.mt/artikli/2014/5/12/l-interconnector-bejn-malta-u-sqallija-se-jkun-lest-sal-ahhar-ta-ottubru.17897
If this is so, do we really need a new power station? We could have had cheaper energy, as proposed by the PN, without having to fork out millions of euro and without an LNG vessel in Marsaxlokk.
They’re running out of time
http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?msg=Konrad's%20power%20station&p0=255&year=2015&month=3&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0