Michael Ring
Question:141 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Public Enterprise the projections for access to energy at source to the western region, further to the gas find in north County Mayo. [30863/01]
Written Answers. - Natural Gas Grid.
Bord Gáis Éireann and the Corrib Partners, Enterprise Energy Ireland, Statoil and Marathon, have completed an agreement under which BGE will build a pipeline to bring Corrib gas from Mayo to connect into the proposed ring-main at Galway.
Recently BGE submitted an application to my Department for consent to construct this pipeline. The scheduled completion date for the pipeline is August 2003. The Corrib partners expect to be flowing gas commercially in late 2003. BGE has signalled that Castlebar, Claremorris, Tuam and Athenry are likely to be connected in the first instance.
Earlier this year the Government decided, in principle, that the gas network should be extended to the north-west. An evaluation carried out by Bord Gáis has determined that this would require grant aid, as the demand for gas in the long-term would not be sufficient to pay for the capital cost of extending the system. Such grant aid would require State aid clearance from the EU Commission.
Given the wider regional and socio-economic benefits of improving the energy infrastructure, the Government has decided to move ahead with the next stage of the project. This will involve conducting a detailed study on extending the gas network to Sligo via Ballina from the proposed Mayo-Galway pipeline and to Letterkenny from Derry, which is expected to be served by a pipeline from Belfast. This study will fully define the pipeline extensions and give an accurate assessment of the levels of grant aid that would be necessary. At the same time my Department will submit a State aid case to the EU Commission.
Following this phase of the project the issue of grant aid will be considered again by Government, provided that the necessary clearance has been obtained from the European Commission.