The fit-and-start posture of the West Africa Gas Pipeline has often thrown Ghana, once known as a haven of uninterrupted light into long periods of darkness. Currently there is an 18-24-hour on and off load shedding ongoing.
But the light deliberately put at the end of the tunnel is about to be switched on – the state’s Atuabo Gas Plant in the Western region is about to come on stream to power plants that regularly been ditched by the WAGP.
This follows the arrival in Ghana of two vessels that would execute the “final tie-in process” for the commencement of shipping of gas from Ghana’s off-shore jubilee fields to the gas processing plant at Atuabo.
Upon completion of the process, shipping of an initial 30 million standard cubic feet of gas from the floating, production, storage and offloading platform (FPSO Kwame Nkrumah) will start and ramp up to its 120 million SCF full capacity in the first quarter of 2015.
The vessels arrived is sequel to the successful completion of an independent audit of the onshore gas processing plant agreed on by the Ghana National Gas Company (Ghana Gas) and the joint operating committee of the Jubilee Partners.
They will carry out important tasks to make the offshore facilities mechanically complete, pre-commissioned and ready for commissioning.
Their tasks include de-watering of the pipeline for installation of the onshore Mono-Ethylene Glycol (MEG) handling facilities.
The Ghana Gas Company is the state entity charged with the responsibility for the management of gas at Atuabo.
After certifying its own facility, Ghana Gas and the Jubilee Partners agreed on appointing an independent audit firm to carry out auditing which ended three days before the arrival of the ships.
Officials say after the tie-in process, gas will be shipped in smaller volumes of 30 million SCF to the Atuabo plant for a start.
Ghana Gas Corporate Manager, Mr Alfred Ogbamey, said the arrival of the vessels to complete the final lap of the process was a very important part of the project.
The tie-in, which he said would take about five-days, would be followed by critical observation to ensure that the facility worked according to design.
For its part the lead operator of the Jubilee Partners, Tullow Ghana, said it was pleased with the progress made so far at Atuabo and looked forward to working with Ghana Gas to tie in to its facilities for supply of gas from the Jubilee field to begin.
The delay in completing the plant forced the Ghana Government to grant a special permit to the Jubilee Partners to flare a total of 500 million SCF at daily volume of about 15 million SCF until the end of October, 2014 after commencement of gas flow to the shore.