Filenews 3 September 2025 - Chrysanthos Manolis
From the information available on what was reported by the Minister of Energy and his colleagues in yesterday's closed part of the session of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy and from other sources, it is concluded with sufficient certainty that the work in Vassiliko for the completion of the natural gas dehydrogenation terminal will resume only when it is prepared by the French Technip and a new road map for the next steps will be approved by ETYFA - possibly also by the Council of Ministers.
Barring the unexpected, the new roadmap will include as a priority the revision of the existing design of the pier and the onshore infrastructure, and in particular the FEED (Front-End Engineering Design).
After yesterday's debate in Parliament, the information recently cited by Phileleftheros is confirmed that Technip, which was selected in May '25 through a tender process by ETYFA as the new project manager, has preliminarily informed the state-owned company that the existing FEED (the initial technical design) prepared by the Chinese CPP is not sufficient, Neither complete, nor technically satisfactory in some parts and must be revised.
As we have written before, Technip is currently in the process of an initial evaluation of the FEED on which the Chinese relied, as well as an evaluation of the inadequate implementation of the project so far and the remaining works, in order to prepare a new road map for ETYFA, with suggestions for the next steps, until the selection of a new contractor through a tender, for the resumption of construction.
George Papanastasiou informed MPs that the French company is expected to deliver its report in a few days. From the preliminary discussions that took place, however, it is very likely that Technip will propose the implementation of a new or supplementary design (FEED) by interested contractors abroad, including proposals on their part regarding the basic technical specifications but also the projected costs and the timetable for the completion of the project.
The exact procedure that will be followed for the new design was not known, but the goal is to utilize the great know-how and experience of the new project manager, so that the resumption of work will take place after ensuring that this time the project design will be clear, complete and appropriate and after sufficient guarantees have been obtained that the new contractor to be selected (for the two separate parts of the pier - upper and lower part and for onshore infrastructure and pipelines) will be able to complete the terminal on time and reliably.
What ETYFA and the Ministry of Energy seem to have come to is that a credible assessment of the situation by Technip is required, at least six years after the initial signing of the contract with CPP, in order to eliminate the margins for other mistakes and reversals.
Pending the submission of the Technip report and the actions that are considered certain to be requested by ETYFA to prepare the ground for a new tender, it is no longer possible to make the slightest prediction for the timing of the possible arrival of natural gas in Cyprus.
"We would never give the work to the CPP"
Indicative of the hollow and under investigation procedure that had been followed in 2018 by the then administration – management of DEFA for the selection of a contractor, is yesterday's report by a representative of Hill International (the Owner's Engineer hired by ETYFA and recently decided not to renew his contract, for obvious reasons) that if the decision had been his, he would never have assigned the project of the terminal to the Chinese CPP!
This position of Hill was submitted to yesterday's closed session of the Energy Committee, after questions submitted to the company's representative by the general secretary of AKEL, Stefanos Stefanou.
We remind you that the Auditor General's report on what preceded the award of the project to CPP in 2019 has as its central core the company's inability to carry out the project, which was obvious in advance, according to the Audit Service. Something that proved to be the case along the way.
