The ship 'Prometheus', owned by the Cypriot natural gas company (ETYFA), is expected to remain in Greece for a year.
This was announced by the government of the island state on Tuesday 24th December.
This is how long it will take to complete the construction of the LNG terminal at Vasiliko. It has not yet been decided in which Greek port the floating facility will be located. It is only known that officials are leaning towards Alexandroupolis. Meanwhile, the vessel is in Singapore, where it was delivered from Shanghai. The problem is that the ship has to be certified as a storage and regasification facility. To do this, it has to dock at an operating terminal for testing. Since the terminal in Vasiliko is not ready, the ship will have to look for another place.
As a reminder, the contract for the construction of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Vasiliko was signed between the Cypriot government and the international consortium CPP-Metron (CMC) in December 2019. The groundbreaking ceremony will take place on 9 July 2020 with the participation of former Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.
The project includes a floating storage and regasification unit, a berth for mooring the floating unit, isothermal gas storage tanks, an evaporation plant and an onshore pipeline. The idea was to import natural gas to Cyprus in liquefied form, convert it to gaseous form (regasified) in LNG and then use it to run power plants.
The terminal was originally due to be completed by the end of 2021, but this was pushed back to the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. In the end, no one could give an exact completion date for the facility. And in July 2024, the contractor announced the suspension of the project. According to media reports, tensions arose between the state-owned Natural Gas Infrastructure Company (ETYFA) and the Chinese consortium CPP-Metron (CMC) over the lack of clear deadlines for the construction of the LNG terminal and problems with the shipment of a floating regasification unit from Shanghai to Cyprus.
Negotiations continued until 18 July, when the contractor announced its withdrawal from the project. The company accused the Cypriot side of non-payment of contractual fees and criticised the inexperience of the Cypriot side and the consultants hired by it. After lengthy negotiations, the Chinese authorities agreed to hand over the Prometheus to Cyprus.