United Equipment Company Ltd (UNEC) – a branch of Bonnici Group – is positioned to win a multi-million-euro tender to supply Enemalta with a temporary diesel-fuelled power plant in Delimara.

The group is led by Managing Director Gilbert Bonnici, a former business partner of Prime Minister Robert Abela and his wife Lydia who built a block of apartments in Iklin together a few years ago.

According to tender submissions for the two-year lease of a 60-megawatt temporary power plant, UNEC submitted the lowest offer, at almost €37 million. They are closely followed by MPDV at €39 million.

Two other bids were submitted by an Italian company based in Milan, Aggreko Italia srl (€44.2 million), which specialises in the same type of power plants requested by the State energy provider, and by US-based APR Energy Holdings Limited (€44.3 million), a global leader in the energy sector.

According to the tender document, Enemalta will decide on the tender according to the lowest price from a technically compliant bidder.

Robert Abela inaugurating Bonnici Group plant soon after he became prime minister.

Bonnici Group seems to be the only Maltese participant in the tender and has the lowest energy sector experience among the four participants.

Recently, a consortium in which Bonnici Group has a 40% stake was declared the winning bidder for a €600 million government project to install an incinerator in Magħtab. The tender is still being contested by a rival international company.

The latest multi-million tender set to cost some €46 million issued by Enemalta is a consequence of years of mismanagement and lack of planning by the state entity, which has now reached crisis levels.

In a letter to the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA), the new Executive Chairman of Enemalta, Ryan Fava, said that without this new temporary power plant, the State energy company could not guarantee the supply needed by consumers this summer.

Requesting a shortcut in the planning permits needed, Fava insisted that the new leased plant needs to be in place by June if Malta is to avoid an energy crisis during peak demand in the tourism season.

Fava publicly contradicted Energy Minister Miriam Dalli, who had insisted that Malta had the necessary capacity to generate the energy it needed.

Dalli’s only solution so far is to install a new interconnector with Sicily and start importing an extra 200MW when needed.

However, the construction of the interconnector, the second with Sicily, is running late and is only expected to become available by late 2026.

In the meantime, according to Fava, Malta needs a temporary solution.

So far, the government has not announced plans to increase local generation capacity through existing plants. These include Enemalta’s few old installations, the BWSC plant that the Chinese government now owns, and Electrogas, owned by CP Holdings, Gasan Enterprises and Tumas Energy, as well as Yorgen Fenech who is accused of commissioning the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.