Labour promised in 2013 that the LNG tanker at Marsaxlokk would only be there for three years until a permanent gas pipeline was built — thirteen years later, the tanker is still in place.
Documentary fact. The Armada LNG Mediterrana FSU (Floating Storage Unit) has been moored at Marsaxlokk since the Electrogas power station commissioning in late 2016. The original 2013 PL framing presented the floating tanker as a transitional solution while the Malta-Italy gas pipeline (Melita Trans Gas) was built. The pipeline project was repeatedly delayed and ultimately suspended in 2025. Thirteen years later, the tanker is still there. Borg's framing matches the historical record.
Documentary fact. The Armada LNG Mediterrana FSU (Floating Storage Unit) has been moored at Marsaxlokk since the Electrogas power station commissioning in late 2016. The original 2013 PL framing presented the floating tanker as a transitional solution while the Malta-Italy gas pipeline (Melita Trans Gas) was built. The pipeline project was repeatedly delayed and ultimately suspended in 2025. Thirteen years later, the tanker is still there. Borg's framing matches the historical record.
The 2013 PL framing presented the floating LNG storage unit at Marsaxlokk as a transitional arrangement until the Malta-Italy gas pipeline (Melita Trans Gas) came online — Konrad Mizzi used 'three years' as the indicative duration. The Armada LNG Mediterrana FSU arrived in late 2016 and has been moored there continuously since. The Melita Trans Gas pipeline encountered repeated delays through 2018-2024 and was formally suspended in 2025 under the EU's shift away from new gas infrastructure. The tanker is still there. Borg's framing matches the operational record. True.
Did Labour really promise to remove the LNG tanker but leave it in place
The Armada LNG Mediterrana — a 125,000-cubic-metre floating tanker permanently moored at Marsaxlokk — is, by some distance, the most visible single object in the south-eastern Maltese skyline. Borg used it as a closing piece of his Siġġiewi argument: Labour told voters in 2013 that the tanker would only be there for three years, the replacement gas pipeline would come, and the floating solution would be retired. Thirteen years on, the tanker is still there. The pipeline never came.
The historical record supports the claim.
The original promise — 2013 manifesto framing
The Electrogas project sat at the heart of the 2013 PL election manifesto's energy chapter. Joseph Muscat's pitch was direct: convert Malta's electricity generation from heavy fuel oil to natural gas, cut household electricity bills, and bring environmental benefits to a coast that had lived next to the Marsa and Delimara HFO plants for decades.
The gas would arrive in two stages. Stage one: a floating LNG storage vessel moored at Marsaxlokk, supplying LNG to a new gas-fired CCGT power station onshore. Stage two: a permanent gas pipeline from Sicily, which would replace the floating tanker once operational. Ministerial communications across 2013-2016 — including statements by then-energy minister Konrad Mizzi — used 'three years' as the indicative duration of the floating-tanker phase.
The pipeline that was supposed to replace it
The Melita Trans Gas pipeline — a 159-kilometre submarine pipeline running from Gela in Sicily to Delimara — was awarded EU Project of Common Interest status as far back as 2013 and received funding under the Connecting Europe Facility instrument. It looked, on paper, like a deliverable mid-decade investment.
Three things happened instead:
The Maltese government formally suspended the Melita Trans Gas pipeline in 2025, citing the broader EU shift away from new gas infrastructure under REPowerEU and the Commission's tightened criteria for new gas-PCI funding.
Where this leaves Borg's claim
Three facts to keep separate:
- The 2013 promise that the floating tanker would be a transitional solution — documented in PL manifesto communications and ministerial press statements
- The Armada LNG Mediterrana FSU's continuous presence at Marsaxlokk from late 2016 to the present
- The Melita Trans Gas pipeline's repeated delays and formal 2025 suspension
All three are documentary fact. The synthesis Borg presented — 'promised three years, still here thirteen years' — is conservative on the duration (the tanker has been in operational service for nine years; the project itself was promised in 2013, hence the thirteen-year framing) but accurate on the substance: the temporary solution has become the operational reality.
So is the claim accurate?
Yes. The tanker is still moored at Marsaxlokk. The pipeline that was supposed to replace it has been formally suspended. The 2013 framing is contradicted by the operational record.
One caveat worth noting: the broader EU policy shift away from gas — REPowerEU and the tightening of the gas-PCI framework — is a structural reason why the pipeline never materialised, and one that did not exist in 2013. PL's failure to deliver the pipeline is not purely a delivery failure; the policy environment around new gas infrastructure changed materially. That is context for the broader story; it does not change the literal answer to Borg's question.
Verdict: True.