The deadline for expressions of interest in taking on the stalled construction project of a natural gas liquefaction terminal at Vasiliko passed on Friday, with Energy Minister Michael Damianos saying that the number of companies interested in the project will be clear on Monday.

“On Monday, we will know the number of companies, joint ventures, which were interested in proceeding with the offers,” he told the Cyprus News Agency, before adding that the cost of completing the project has been estimated at around €180 million.

He said he expects the project to take two years to be brought to completion.

Efforts to build a liquefaction terminal in Vasiliko have been stalled for more than two years, with the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co consortium and Metron Energy Applications SA, which together formed the CPP-Metron Consortium (CMC), having torn up its contract with the government for its construction in July 2024.

CMC had accused public natural gas infrastructure company Etyfa of “bullying” and of leaving them to work “without proper or timely payments for years”, while a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), which was supposed to be brought to Cyprus for use, remained moored in Malaysia, without certification. 

The FSRU remains in Malaysia to this day.

European Commission demanded Cyprus repay €69m

Also in July 2024, the European Commission demanded that the Republic of Cyprus repay almost €69 million which had been paid in grants for the terminal. 

This money had been provided as part of the European Union’s “Cyprus Gas 2 EU” project, which was listed as an EU “project of common interest” and had been funded by the EU to the tune of €101m.

The energy ministry received a letter from the European Commission which listed “possible irregularities which occurred during the evaluation period of the tender” for the construction project. 

The commission’s letter, according to the ministry, “alleges two substantive violations”, the first being the criteria for awarding the tender [to CMC] in December 2019 and the second being the signing of the bilateral agreement upon approval of an additional €25m in funding in June 2022.

The European public prosecutor’s office had earlier in the same month publicly announced the opening of an investigation into possible procurement fraud, misappropriation of EU funds and corruption related to the Vasiliko LNG terminal.

The Republic of Cyprus signed the contract for the LNG project in December 2019. The entire project should have taken 22 months to complete.