Natural gas by 2014

NATURAL gas will arrive on the island by 2014, the Trade, Industry and Tourism Minister Antonis Paschalides said yesterday.

Paschalides said his ministry is currently at the final stages of the negotiations with the short-listed companies for the selection of the natural gas provider.

After the selection of the provider company, the provider and the strategic investor for the natural gas terminal will be coordinated.

The natural gas project is expected to cost around a billion euros.

”A big effort and very hard work is underway so that we are ready in time,” Paschalides said, describing the natural gas project as ”perhaps the most important ever made in Cyprus.”

The Minister noted however that this is up to the Tenders Review Board, stressing that a potential appeal against a tender must be examined immediately.

”A businessman cannot block a project because he lost a tender over 1,000 or 2,000 euro,” he added.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.