Filenews 4 April 2025 - by Eleftheria Paizanou
The €70 million requested by the Government - and taken by a decision of the Parliament yesterday - through the budget of DEFA and concerning the increase of ETYFA's share capital in order to proceed with the projects in the natural gas terminal will not be enough to complete the project.
And so far there is no clear position on the government side on the final cost of the project, as the award of bids for the remaining projects in Vassiliko is pending. Fileleftheros is informed that, according to data sent to Parliament by the Ministry of Energy on the way of distributing the €70 million, on the basis of DEFA's business plan, the additional funds will be spent as follows:
- Completion of the construction works in Vassilikos, based on the estimates of the company's consulting engineers. The specific construction works include the completion of the works until the certification of the Prometheus floating unit and the completion of the land and floating infrastructure necessary for the operation of the terminal.
- Repayment of loans (interest and initial capital) for this year and next year.
- Legal and other costs relating to the ongoing arbitration at the International Court of Arbitration in London.
- Technical consulting costs for monitoring and supervision of the project.
- Staffing and operation of the Prometheus floating unit.
And more next year...
In fact, as the Ministry of Energy notes to the Parliament's Energy Committee, the €70 million They relate only to 2025 and the share of expenditure corresponding to the year (about half). The competent Ministry of Energy indicates that a possible disclosure of the business plan will create negative developments in the ongoing arbitration at the Court of Arbitration in London, while it will put ETYFA and by extension the Republic of Cyprus in a worse position in the upcoming offers and negotiations with potential contractors for the completion of the works on the terminal.
The reason for the promotion of the secret data in the Parliament - which is not known to what extent they were distributed to MPs - was yesterday's debate on the budget of DEFA in the Plenary Session of the Parliament.
The budget was adopted unanimously. Previously, the Plenary Session of the Parliament had voted against DISY's amendments, which crossed (committed) among other things the budget of €70 million which concerns the increase of the share capital of ETYFA in order to finance the company and complete the terminal.
Before the adoption of the budget, there was a heated debate between Members of Parliament over the procedures for completing the project at the Vassiliko terminal, and there were mutual accusations about the handling of the various governments.
The information on ETYFA's next steps indicates that negotiations with a large European company are in their final stages, which, if the discussions are successful, will undertake as project manager, to coordinate the call for tenders or the assignment of projects to complete the individual infrastructure of the LNG terminal.
