'Price tag for fuel security could be hundreds of millions'
GUERNSEY faces a bill that could run into 'hundreds of millions of pounds' to protect its long term fuel needs.
The project is not earmarked to go ahead in the next four years, but £830,000 has been budgeted for external consultants researching it.
'The programme of work is large and extremely complex,' said States' Trading Assets deputy managing director Richard Evans, while answering questions about the size and timing of the consultants' bill.
'The States has engaged specialist consultants who have experience in both the potential engineering and technical requirements, and economic and financial fields. The States does not have this level of expertise internally and sought it from external consultants.
'While £830,000 is a large amount of money, the eventual price tag for the security of supply could run into hundreds of millions of pounds.
'It is important that the States is given sufficiently accurate and evidence-based information on which the decisions can be made.
'That said, no decisions have yet been made on any single option.
'As with most large programmes, a significant amount of work is required to explore the options and build the business cases for the chosen solution and it is expected that this programme will take time to develop and will need to ensure that the options considered by the States are still valid at all stages of the process.'
