The consortium CMC announced on July 18th the termination of the contract for the construction of the liquefied natural gas reception terminal and its regasification in Vasilikos.

Although the decision by the Chinese consortium did not seem to surprise the government – since this was the desired goal by the state itself – the fate of the floating unit "Prometheus" remains uncertain, as the termination was decided by the company without the desired agreement being reached.

To resolve the issue, and since, Prometheus has received the appropriate certifications and is able to sail, the Republic of Cyprus is expected to send a crew in the coming days to the shipyard in Shanghai where "hostage" Prometheus is located, to transport it to Cyprus.

However, this action might be thwarted by the consortium, even though government sources have repeatedly emphasized that the ship belongs to the Republic of Cyprus, which would cause further delays in Cyprus's energy plans.

For this reason, the government has also devised a plan B, which President of the Republic Nikos Christodoulides mentioned during his statements yesterday, highlighting that it was ultimately a mistake to entrust the implementation of the infrastructure to this company.

It should be noted that so far about €180 million has been spent on Prometheus, while the Chinese consortium demands compensation of about €40 million to hand it over. However, no amounts were discussed in the previous negotiations between ETYFA and the company.

Meanwhile, apart from Prometheus, the land and other infrastructures in Vasilikos have been on hold for a long time.

The project will be undertaken by a subcontractor with the expertise to implement it.

Furthermore, as government sources have claimed, the project (land and jetty) can be completed within 8 months and at a cost of approximately €69 million. This amount will keep the project within the budget of €314 million, as approximately €245 million has already been paid to the Chinese consortium for the work completed previously.

It should be noted that ETYFA paid the Chinese consortium upon the completion of each partial task, so no advance payments were made to CMC. The completion rate of the jetty is currently at 40% and the land infrastructure at 50%.