THE people of Milford Haven should be proud of the South Hook LNG project according to Prince Andrew, who spoke in an exclusive interview with the Western Telegraph.

Reporter Nichole Sarra spoke to the Duke of York at the official inauguration of Qatargas 2, the world’s first fully integrated value chain LNG project in Ras Laffan city on Monday.

Prince Andrew said the people of Milford Haven and Pembrokeshire should be proud to be part of the huge energy project.

He said: “Absolutely, yes the people should be proud. I mean, these are technological marvels and when you look at the storage containers built at Milford Haven the tanks have been built in a low profile way for a number of reasons, but you can still get an Albert Hall inside each of them which is the most remarkable piece of information I have discovered.”

The Duke, who is the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment, also stressed the importance of the LNG project for Wales and the UK.

“This is going to diversify our energy security and energy supply, we are going to be able to get 20% of our gas supply coming in from a friendly country where we can’t produce it ourselves because of depleted resources in the North Sea,” he added.

“I believe it has employed a huge number of people in Wales to build the terminal so I think it’s good for Wales and good for the UK and its clean energy.

“Everybody knows about the problems that we had with energy security and concerns we have with that and it’s been brought to everyone’s attention by a number of issues at the start of the year notably in Russia and Ukraine.

“So everybody should now rest a little more easily in the knowledge that we have diversified out supply from another supplier so we should never see the lights go out.”

Prince Andrew also said he was looking forward to attending the inauguration in Milford Haven.

“I have been down and saw it while it was being built a couple of years ago when I was visiting Pembroke Dock, so I had an opportunity to see it then but I haven’t been on the site yet so I am looking forward to coming next month.”