Speaking in a televised interview about energy investments, Balluku said that, “obviously these are very important injections in terms of energy in Albania.”

“Whether the investment regarding Skavica, which is set to go through parliament as a special law in the days to come, or the recent investment, an American injection in the Albanian market, setting Vlora thermal power station to operation. The most important thing is that that thermal power plant will not be simply set to operation, it will be converted into a LNG technology,” Balluku emphasized.

Balluku said that it is a completely US investment.

“Exxon Mobil and Excelerate Energy are two companies that will invest. Excelerate will invest as operator and Exxon as supplier. “So there will be no investment from the Albanian state and it will be entirely an investment from the US,” she said.

Balluku added that what drives these companies to invest in Albania is the fact that the Albanian state will buy the energy produced. In the meantime, this plan has existed for a long time and we have tried several times, not only Rama –led government, but also other governments, to set this thermal power plant to operation and it has been impossible due to the wrong construction from the very beginning, ” she said.

“So based on all the expertise of these large companies and all the offer and financial injection that they will make in the energy market, the Republic of Albania will buy this amount of energy according to our needs. Under the agreement, this thermal power plant will produce according to the current needs of Albania, complementing Albania’s hydro power-based electricity production,” Balluku said.

Regarding the government’s plan for the country’s gasification, Balluku said, “we have a master plan on the country’s gasification.”

“Certainly it was born out of necessity for another resource of energy. In our country electricity is massively used for everything, in production and industry, in domestic use by households and subscribers for heating, cooking, etc. Out of the need for another resource that is more cost efficient, but certainly would be more accessible to all subscribers, we decided to draft this master plan, which will be one of the most important steps in the next term and for this reason we hit the ground running. “Certainly there will be some pilot cities, which are located near the TAP gas pipeline, such as Korça or Fier, to then continue with other cities,” said Balluku.

Of course, Balluku stressed, “TAP is a very important project, which has significantly contributed to economy in Albania.”
/j.p/sm/