ALL POLITICAL parties bar ruling AKEL yesterday rallied behind calls to import compressed natural gas (CNG).
DISY, DIKO and EDEK deputies spoke out in favour of the possibility of importing CNG instead of liquid natural gas (LNG), which, according to expert estimations, will not be ready until 2015.
AKEL, however, insists the government’s decision to create a land-based terminal to facilitate LNG is the best solution to the matter.
The deputies’ comments followed a Simerini newspaper interview with former Commerce Minister Antonis Michaelides on Sunday.
Michaelides claimed that the government’s decision to create a land-based LNG terminal, combined with Cyprus being pronounced an emerging market, was unconstitutional.
Asked to comment yesterday, AKEL deputy Stavros Evagorou defended the government’s decision, adding, however, that his party was in favour of procedures being sped up in order to have LNG in Cyprus the soonest possible.
Evagorou blamed the delays on “regressions and retractions that took place in the past” and said the new government took just two months to reach “the final solution of adopting the advice and suggestions of all the experts, who advised us to continue immediately with the land-based terminal”.
He added, “What we do hope for, as AKEL, is for the realisation of this decision to be sped up, so that we can have [LNG] sooner than 2015, so we can in seriousness resolve this serious energy problem.”
The AKEL deputy avoided commenting on the prospect of using compressed natural gas and said he was unaware of reports claiming Egypt had proposed to supply Cyprus with CNG.
In contrast, DISY Deputy President Averoff Neophytou saw CNG as not only a short-term solution, but even a long-term one.
He also pointed out that the Electricity Authority of Cyprus’ new power station, which is expected to be up and running in the summer, could use natural gas or diesel for the production of electricity. “But because this state in its entirety has been messing it up for years, it is impossible to import natural gas by this summer.
Instead of using natural gas or mazut, this fourth station will consume diesel at a multiple cost to that of mazut and over double or treble the cost of natural gas,” Neophytou explained.
The government should not rule out the possibility of using other forms of natural gas, he added. “Our economy cannot take it. It is our opinion that compressed natural gas is possibly the short-term, or medium-term and why not the long-term solution, which will help supply cheaper electricity at cheaper costs and to the benefit of the Cyprus economy and Cypriot households.”
DIKO deputy Antigoni Papadopoulou confirmed her party had been informed on Egypt’s CNG proposal. “It is therefore our opinion that the issue must be discussed as soon as possible at the [House] Commerce Committee, if possible, by the end of this week,” she said. “The issue must be clarified and if there are other ways for us to find a solution and have natural gas with rapid short-term procedures, then we welcome it.”
EDEK’S Marinos Sizopoulos, who was the only deputy to vote against the government bill for the creation of a land-based LNG terminal, said the government had not fully examined the possibility of using CNG as an alternative solution.
“I believe that this option should have been developed, because it is better than all the rest,” he explained. “On the one hand, we do not need the high cost of constructing a terminal and on the other, the time it will take to bring [CNG] will be much shorter in contrast to liquid natural gas. Finally, it is a much safer method.”
Sizopoulos pointed to past reports of horrific work accidents and fatalities that took place inside and around LNG facilities. “As a Limassol MP [where the LNG unit is to be built] I believe it is unthinkable to place a huge napalm bomb next to Limassol.
I therefore believe that the Cyprus state should exhaust all the possibilities of using compressed natural gas.”
