Entrepreneur: 2009 LNG proposal was made to Gonzi

Paul Apap Bologna, director of GEM Holdings – a shareholder in the Electrogas consortium which is building a LNG plant at Delimara – confirmed having made the proposal to the government, namely the former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, and George Pullicino and Austin Gatt as the ministers responsible for energy and resources.

Apap Bologna told MaltaToday that “the authorities, at the time, had listened with interest. However there was no follow-up.”

On Tuesday, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil forwarded to the Auditor General a copy of a proposal that was rejected by the previous administration.

“The documents indicate that the current power plant specifications were influenced, if not dictated, by the people who had a direct interest in the contract,” Busuttil told the Auditor General, who is conducting an investigation into the 2014 contract awarded to Electrogas for the construction of a 200MW LNG plant.

“I believe that this flies in the face of good governance in the administration of public funds, and I urge you to take this document in consideration throughout your investigations of the power station,” Busuttil said.

The Opposition leader, in parliament, has insisted that this original proposal indicates that Labour had struck a pre-electoral deal with

Electrogas and that its expression of interest for the power station was a sham from the start.

Busuttil has however refused to state when and to whom the 2009 presentation was made.

Apap Bologna categorically denied having struck any deals and insisted that no pre-electoral presentations were made to either the Labour or Nationalist party before 2013.

“As previously stated, there were no pre-electoral discussions on energy projects with either political party,” he told MaltaToday on Saturday.

“The presentation you are referring to was made to the government of Malta back in 2009,” Apap Bologna said, referring to the document passed on by Busuttil to the NAO.

“At the time we had presented our concept to the Prime Minister and the Ministers responsible for Energy and Resources. As with any other proposal, the authorities, at the time, had listened with interest, however there was no follow-up.”

Apap Bologna said that, back in 2009, he had been promoting the project together with his uncle and entrepreneur Michael Bianchi.  

“Eventually we would have approached various investor groups both local and international, however none was on board at the time of the presentation,” he added.

The presentation, seen by MaltaToday, described the Maltese investors’ group as having been assembled and led by Apap Bologna and that it would comprise “a diverse group of Maltese citizens and prominent business families”.

The consortium would also include Gasol, International Power plc – today known as Engie Energy International – and Teekay Corporation.

The latter is a Vancouver-based shipping and maritime group involved in gas and LNG fleet.
Apap Bologna said that their proposal back in 2009 was influenced by a document issued by Enemalta and the Ministry for Industry titled, ‘Enemalta Corporation, Electricity Generation Plan 2006-2015’.

The document had described the switch to natural gas as “an attractive alternative”. It had also acknowledged the presence of third parties in the private sector who “had been evaluating the possibility of an LNG terminal in Malta”.
Apap Bologna however argued that the 2009 concept was “significantly different” to the current LNG project.

“We were envisaging a much larger power plant – 400MW or larger – which would have not only catered for local demand but would have been used to export energy via an eventual interconnector to Sicily. The only similarities were the use of natural gas as a fuel for power generation.”

In 2014 Electrogas Malta won the bid to build and operate a power plant using LNG to generate electricity, the flagship project for the Labour government, which will be constructed by Siemens, together with SOCAR and Maltese business groups Gasan and Tumas.