By Anthony O. Miller
ANGRY Larnaca residents plan a march on their city centre today to protest against government plans to spend $40 million to upgrade the island’s oil refinery instead of building new petrol storage tanks somewhere other than the Larnaca shore.
Currently, the beachfront north of Larnaca along the coast is chock-a-block with oil, petrol, diesel, and LPG (liquid petroleum gas) storage tanks and the island’s oil refinery.
The Larnaca Progressive Movement, comprising some 200 residents, says the tanks and refinery are an eyesore, a source of noxious fumes, a danger to nearby residents and an obstacle to developing the beach between the city and Dhekelia.
They want the government to abandon its $40-million plan to upgrade the refinery so it can produce more unleaded petrol and low-sulphur diesel fuel, and thus comply with EU strictures with an eye to entering the European Union in 2003.
In the long term, the government plans to demolish the Larnaca refinery and, instead of replacing it with a new one, build tank farms capable of holding minimally a 90-day supply of refined petroleum products, in compliance with EU rules.
But the planned $40-million upgrade of the refinery would involve its retention for perhaps 15 more years – something Panicos Sardos, president of the Progressive Movement, says is unacceptable.
“The area now is a disgrace, with storage tanks only a few metres from the sea. We want the government to stop any new investment in the refinery and the tank farms, clean up the area and give the beaches back to the people of Larnaca,” Sardos said, adding the $40 million should be spent on new tank farms.
The government has long pledged Larnaca residents that it would move the refinery and the tank farms, so Sardos’ group views plans to spend millions more to prolong the refinery’s life by 15 years as a breach of that promise, and they vow a fight.
“It’s not going to be easy for them,” Sardos said. “We will go to court, go to Europe, to the European Commission’s Environment Directorate,” to which he said his group had already reported their displeasure at the government’s plans.
Sardos dismissed as hype Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis’ claims that it will take several hundred million dollars to construct fuel storage tank farms to comply with EU rules.
If Cyprus were to continue to refine crude oil – versus its plan to ultimately abandon refining oil in Cyprus – EU rules would require it to triple its current 100,000-ton crude oil storage capacity to about 320,000 tons. Building these tanks could cost over $300 million, Rolandis has said.
Rolandis has also said it would cost millions of dollars more to replace the current storage tank farms along the Larnaca coast with sufficiently large tank farms elsewhere to store the minimum 90-days worth refined petroleum products that EU rules require.
Sardos said experts his group has consulted say new tank farms would cost a mere “few million pounds to build,” and nothing near as much as Rolandis estimates.
This logic is false,” Sardos said of Rolandis’ plans. “It’s serving the interests of some people, but not of the Cypriot people,” he charged.
Sardos said his group’s protest would begin at 11am today at Acropolis Square in downtown Larnaca and march to the Municipal Square with a petition for President Glafcos Clerides and the Council of Ministers.
