The facility\u2019s estimated cost of up to $1 billion was to be paid via a levy on electricity.<\/p>\n
By late March, the plan had been thrown into doubt after the war in the Middle East sent LNG prices skyrocketing.<\/p>\n
But in June, Brown said the Government had reaffirmed its position to build the LNG facility and intended to sign a contract before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Brown said the procurement process had been reduced to two potential candidates.<\/p>\n
He also said the Government would scrap the controversial levy on power bills and find a way for the gentailers to pay for the facility.<\/p>\n
A Cabinet committee met to discuss the terminal this week and agreed no decision would be taken this term.<\/p>\n
There are two tracks the decision could go down: the first is continuing the MBIE-led procurement process begun this year. The second is a gentailer-led proposal. <\/p>\n
A Government source said the gentailers proposed exploring their own procurement of an LNG import terminal, alternative thermal back-up or a mix of the two. Other sources confirmed the scheme but did not elaborate on details. <\/p>\n
The final decision on whether to progress the MBIE procurement or allow the gentailers to find their own dry-year solution has been left to next term, pending the right-wing coalition returning to Parliament.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood the Government would likely still need to underwrite investment in an LNG facility either way.<\/p>\n
When asked for comment, Contact and Mercury didn\u2019t deny that a gentailer-led procurement was on the table.<\/p>\n
Contact chief executive Mike Fuge said: \u201cContact believes passionately that the solution to dry year, and other system risks, is multiple energy sources to be held as strategic reserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes increased coal storage, more flexibility in hydro operating ranges, more bridged diesel supply, commercial arrangements for industrial demand response and right-sized LNG import.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contact CEO Mike Fuge says his company believes the country needs multiple energy sources to be held as strategic reserves. Photo \/ Dan Hutchinson<\/p>\n
A Mercury spokesperson said: \u201cWe\u2019ve had discussions with various parties around potential contributions toward LNG terminal costs, if this approach was to be pursued by the Government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meridian said it was unable to comment and Genesis did not respond.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Act leader David Seymour said it would be \u201cirresponsible\u201d for the Government to sign a contract before the election.<\/p>\n
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said not making a decision at this stage was agreed upon by all three coalition parties.<\/p>\n
Troy Matich is a political reporter with Newstalk ZB, working from Parliament\u2019s press gallery. She joined NZME in 2025, previously working for RNZ as a producer for Morning Report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The facility\u2019s estimated cost of up to $1 billion was to be paid via a levy on electricity.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8038,3269,138,5904,16460,266,7237,14349,53655,300735,111,139,69,76331,2170,89272,94230,16715,1335,30331,61,686],"class_list":["post-610235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-natural","tag-build","tag-business","tag-final","tag-gas","tag-government","tag-governments","tag-import","tag-liquefied","tag-liquified","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parliamentary","tag-plan","tag-stalled","tag-stalls","tag-taranaki","tag-term","tag-terminal","tag-to","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}