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Compensation has been paid to almost all the farmers who have been affected by the Atuabo gas project, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gas Company (Ghana Gas), Dr George Adjah-Sipa Yankey, has said. So far, he said, the company had paid about GH�3 million in compensation to the farmers. Dr Yankey made this known when the Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, inspected work on the project as part of his three-day tour of the Western Region. He said farmers who had not received their compensation would soon be catered for and asked them to bear with the company. Full-scale operations The plant is scheduled to begin full-scale operations by the end of August 2014. The project has the capacity to process about 150 million standard cubic feet of raw gas from the Jubilee Oilfield per day. The Vice-President charged the management of Ghana Gas to endeavour to, as a matter of urgency, ensure the full-scale operation of the plant by the end of August. He told the management that Ghanaians were looking forward to the day they would enjoy improved energy delivery. Mr Amissah-Arthur, who expressed satisfaction with progress of work so far, stated that Ghana stood to save millions of dollars �when we begin to generate our own gas�. The Operations Manager of Ghana Gas, Dr Ben Asante, who briefed the Vice-President on the status of the project, said the project was 99.78 per cent complete, while the offshore pipeline was 99.63 per cent complete. He added that while the gas processing plant was 99.18 per cent complete, the onshore pipeline was 99.99 per cent complete. Benefits Dr Asante explained that the project, which was expected to add an additional 550 megawatts of power to the national grid, would save the country $500 million every year for using gas instead of oil to generate electricity. He added that Ghana Gas would also produce 500 tonnes of liquified petroleum gas a day as a by-product, which would represent about 75 per cent of the current national demand. Dr Asante indicated that the rehabilitation of the 34km Krisan-Atuabo�Tikobo road was to begin to improve access to the project site. Contractors have been engaged and the road project was expected to be completed in September this year, he said. He added that the Eloyin Bridge that had been reinforced would initially be used for LPG trucking. The Board Chairman of Ghana Gas, Professor Kwesi Botchwey, said the company had put measures in place to protect and maintain the equipment used on the project.