Mar 03 - Government “Trying To Stifle Debate On LNG” – Says GSD
The protestations from the Government that the Opposition is creating uncertainty over the storage of LNG are symptomatic of a Government that “wants neither its decisions questioned nor a debate to occur on matters of significant public interest to this community” says the GSD.
The Government, says the GSD, does not have a mandate to build an LNG operated power station and still less an LNG installation handling bunkering quantities of LNG. On the contrary, argues the Opposition, the GLSP-Liberal manifesto promised to honour any contract in place in respect of the GSD power station in Lathbury Barracks and that contract was in place.
The GSD says that it is right given the close proximity of the LNG Installation to densely populated areas, and the disastrous consequences for those areas should an accident occur, for there to be public debate on the matter and for the public to be informed of the consequences of an accident.
The GSD accepts that the risk is low but says that accidents do happen and have happened in a number of installations world wide. People deserve to be fully apprised of those consequences, stresses the Opposition, particularly when an Installation of this kind would not have been built internationally without adequate consultation of those affected on a totally transparent basis. That requires, says the GSD, the publication of the reports showing the consequences for people and property should something go wrong.
The GSD also notes the observations of Robin Meech, Managing Director of Marine and Energy Consulting who said last week that he was not optimistic about the prospects for LNG bunkering in Gibraltar. Mr Meech was in Gibraltar to present a session in the Gibraltar Government sponsored Bunkering Industry Regional Forum. He also said that large international vessels will not require bunkers for LNG for maybe 15 to 30 years. This contrasts sharply with the view expressed by the Government that Gibraltar had to make an immediate decision on LNG Bunkering as a matter of economic imperative. In its most recent communiqué the Government has revised its estimate as to the economic imperative of LNG Bunkering to 5 to 15 years in the future. The GSD says that there is therefore “clearly no rush to build a bunkering LNG Installation”.
Further, the GSD says it has had an opportunity to examine the claims made by the Chief Minister on GBC that EU law will require Gibraltar to offer LNG bunkering facilities and that a future GSD Government would have to apply for an exemption. This is not true, says the Opposition. There is no legal requirement for Gibraltar to offer LNG Bunkers and the Chief Minister either made the statement without knowing about the facts or is not telling the truth, concludes the GSD.
