Ocean Tankers, the company that is ferrying water to Cyprus began filling their vessel in Greece and was due to set sail for Limassol Monday night, the company's chairman Michael Ioannides said. At a news conference in Nicosia, Ioannides said the first tanker should set sail late on Monday with 50,000 cubic metres of water on board. Work to fill up the tanker, which began Sunday was to take around 24 hours The ship will take 41 hours to reach Limassol and is due to dock at 6pm on Monday.
Cyprus is importing eight million cubic metres of water from Greece over the next six month using six Ocean Tankers' vessels that will come and go on a daily basis.
Ioannides said when the boat reached Limassol, the water would remain on board until tests on samples of the water were completed. By Wednesday it is expected that the water will be channelled into the system.
He said that when the analysis is complete, the ship would anchor at Yermasoyia to begin the process of unloading the water.
"This will take between 20 and 24 hours," Ioannides said.
He said all of the required processes would be followed. "In fact tests show that the water that is coming to Cyprus will be even better than what we have today through the desalination process," Ioannides said.
He said the company had chosen six of its tankers out of a possible 60 that they inspected because they had covered facilities for the transportation of the water and held international certification for the transportation of water.
Ocean Tankers, he said was also pursuing the placing of desalination units on its ships, which could then be used as floating units for any country that may need water.
"This is a pioneering concept because it would not use local energy sources," said Ioannides.
Such units could produce 50,000 to 300,000 tonnes of water per day at a lower cost for drought-hit countries like Cyprus.
The Greek water is being supplied by the Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company at the same price it charges to the Greece's Cyclades islands.
The government has a €35 million contract with Ocean Tankers Holdings for the transportation.
Meanwhile, yesterday the company announced the approval by the Cyprus Stock Exchange of the listing of 161,631,810 Rights for the existing shareholders as at June 30, 2008.
Specifically and pursuant to the issue terms as included in the Prospectus dated June 13, 2008, for every existing share, 1 Right will be allocated. Every 5 Rights exercised will be converted into 2 new ordinary shares of nominal value $0.20 each with an exercise price of €0.55 per share. According to the timetable set, the date of dispatch of allocation letters was set at July 9th, while the rights will be tradable in the Cyprus Stock Exchange from July 23rd to August 12. The date that the new shares resulting from the Rights exercise will start trading in the CSE will be published in the press within five business days from the date of approval of the listing of the new shares in the CSE.
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