Ghana has announced plans to significantly
reduce the quantity of gas it purchases from
Nigeria in the next couple of months through
increased local gas production.
President of Ghana, Mr. John Mahama, who was
responding to questions on the economy at the
Global African Investment Summit in London, said
the country is working hard to court more private
investors to shore up local production of gas to
solve the country’s power crisis.
He said this will end the country’s over-reliance
on the West African gas pipeline which has been
inconsistent with supplying gas to the country.
He said, “We had a lot of excitement when the
gas pipeline was built hoping that the abundance
of Nigerian gas will flow through the pipeline to
help all the four countries signed onto the
pipeline, but the volume has been very
disappointing.”
He, however, expressed the hope that the
country’s current energy crisis will stabilise when
works on the Atuabo gas processing plant is
completed, adding that the plant should start
producing gas for power generation by the end of
November.
Mahama said the facility, which has the capacity
to generate about 140 million standard cubic feet
of natural gas a day, is estimated to save the
country more than $500 million annually when it
is substituted for light crude oil in the generation
of power.
In addition, he stated that the facility will produce
more than 70 per cent of the estimated 240,000
tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) required
annually for domestic use in the country.
A Ghanaian news website, Ghanaweb, said at
least three power plants in the country were taken
offline in September, after Nigeria stopped
supplying gas to Ghana over a strike by oil
workers.
The news website said this has been a regular
tale which plunges the country into black-outs
almost instantly.
According to the news website, the Electricity
Corporation of Ghana (ECG) had a couple of days
ago, announced a 48-hour-on; 24-hour-off load
shedding regime after it was forced to shed over
500 megawatts of power.
It said, “That led to an emergency meeting by
stakeholders with a plan to purchase crude oil at
a cost of $120 million to power the thermal
plants.
“The ongoing load shedding programme across
the country may soon improve considerably
following measures taken by power producers to
increase generation capacity. The Bui Dam is now
operating at full capacity following a slight
improvement in the water level.”
Source Vanguard.
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