ZAGREB, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Croatian Minister of Environmental Protection and Energy on Wednesday strongly rejected criticism of a floating LNG terminal that is planned to be constructed on the island Krk in northern Adriatic.
After the Mayor of the island's town Omisalj wrote an open letter on Tuesday claiming that the project is harmful to Croatia and its citizens, Minister Tomislav Coric said these statements were "not the subject of his interest."
Some local community representatives are unhappy with the floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the island Krk. They believe it will not be economically viable and will only lead to higher gas prices in Croatia, and thus hit the poorest part of the population. What's more, they believe the terminal would endanger tourism on the island which is heavily dependent on the service sector.
"This is not just an economic, ecological and energy project, but also a damaging project to the Croatian state and all its citizens," wrote Mirela Ahmetovic, Mayor of Omisalj, the town close to the terminal, in the open letter on Tuesday.
In June 2018, the Croatian parliament adopted a special law to speed up the building of the project. The government claims that the LNG project is of strategic importance for Croatia.
The total cost of the terminal is around 300 million U.S. dollars, with the European Union providing around 115 million U.S. dollars, and the terminal is scheduled to start working on Oct. 1, 2020.
Due to the little interest in leasing, the deadline for applications has been extended twice, and so far, only two Croatian companies, INA and HEP, have shown interest, only for 520 million cubic meters of gas annually. The planned terminal capacity is 2.6 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and estimates suggest that the investment would be profitable if 1.5 billion cubic meters per year would be leased.
