Nexans has cancelled tenders for works related to the Great Sea Interconnector after the joint decision by Cyprus and Greece to freeze the electrical interconnection project whilst technical and economic data are updated, sources told Phileleftheros.
The French company, which was contracted to manufacture and lay the cable, has already informed in writing foreign companies that had expressed interest in the tenders it issued for works falling under its overall contract with Greece’s electricity transmission operator IPTO, according to sources.
The tenders are cancelled, as the Cyprus-Crete electrical interconnection project cannot proceed as initially planned, Nexans told the companies.
However, Nexans has not informed potential bidders of a definitive cancellation of the Great Sea Interconnector, sources said.
The company told them the project must be re-evaluated in the coming period and a new schedule prepared for advancing individual works. If and when this happens, Nexans will seek partners again.
The French company has made no public reaction or comment so far on the Cyprus-Greece decision to update the technical and economic studies for the interconnector.
Just a few weeks ago in late October, before Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Nikos Christodoulides announced in Athens the need to update studies, Nexans’s new chief executive, Julien Hueber, had publicly assured the project was proceeding normally and the company was continuing close cooperation with IPTO for the next steps.
In that session with analysts and journalists, the chief executive downplayed a previous Nexans announcement referring to alternative solutions for utilising the submarine cables manufactured for the Crete-Cyprus interconnection if the project ultimately failed.
“There is no plan B, we are working based on plan A for the project,” he had stressed. Hueber explained that whilst Nexans is examining electrical interconnections with similar technical characteristics to the GSI, these initiatives concern plans for 2028-2029, not the Cyprus-Crete interconnection. The Nexans leader today very likely faces the high-profile issue very differently.
Hueber confirmed on that occasion the company had received payments of €250 million from IPTO up to that point, covering work done until August. It is not known whether IPTO made other disbursements to Nexans after August, though this is rather unlikely.
It is also not known what financial consequences the substantial freezing of the project will have for IPTO as the implementing body, for the two governments, or for electricity consumers in both countries.
The consequences of the mandatory schedule change and cable production from Nexans, as well as the pending Cypriot debts to the Greek organisation, are also unknown.
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