AN ENERGY Centre near the Vassiliko Power Plant could be ready as early as 2010, the House European Affairs Committee heard yesterday.
The assurance was given by Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides, who said procedures involved in allowing the project to go ahead would be finalised within a week. After that, it would take no longer than two years to build the terminal from the date the contracts were signed, he said.
The minister was answering deputies’ questions regarding huge delays in the constructions and operation of the Energy Centre, which will be used for storing and operating strategic petroleum reserves.
Commerce Ministry Energy Service Director Solon Kasinis said the two-year timeframe was feasible, as all that remained was putting the plan into action.
Paschalides told the committee how President Demetris Christofias’ government had fully complied with the instructions and recommendations of the European Union regarding strategic petroleum reserves.
Unlike past governments, this government was going forward with preparations to build the Energy Centre in the Larnaca district’s Vasiliko area, which would be responsible for keeping the strategic reserves of the Cyprus Organisation for the Storage and Management of Oil Stocks, (KODAP), he said.
In the meantime, two alternative proposals were also under review. One was from KODAP regarding its storage of petroleum reserves which would be used by petroleum companies, and the second was from private petroleum companies to create their own storage spaces.
Paschalides said the government had the political will to carry out the project and that steps were being taken now that had not been taken in the past three years, such as land expropriations and extending the chosen site.
Suggestions by private companies were acceptable, but delaying the project from going ahead was not, he said.
“The government has its position and will to go ahead and will go ahead… For the government the Energy Centre is an infrastructure project,” he said.
Meanwhile Kasinis showed the committee specific evidence of procedures followed in the past years regarding stocking petroleum reserves and said not only was the Energy Centre necessary but so was a new refinery.
He added that to date Cyprus had fulfilled its European Union promises to keep petroleum reserves for 90 days, starting from February 2008. Part of its stocks was held in Holland, with the largest portion kept in Greece, he said.
In reference to the interest shown by private companies to create their own storage space, House Competition Protection Committee Chairman Costakis Christoforou said that the lack of necessary infrastructure projects created problems that did not contribute towards a healthy and free competition.
“It seems there are a lot of weaknesses so that healthy competition doesn’t work,’ he said.
