Ghana Gas Attributes Power Outages To Tie-In Of Pipeline System

The Government has attributed the recent intermittent power outages experienced by domestic and commercial power consumers to the total shutdown of the Ghana Gas pipeline system to ensure effective inter-connection with the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo).

The tie-in of the two companies’ systems is to ensure reverse flow of surplus gas at the Aboadze Thermal Power enclave to Tema Power enclave for power generation.

This is expected to increase the country’s natural gas capacity from 120 million standard cubic feet (SCF) of gas per day to 330 million SCF/per day.

The interconnection would also take the burden on government for having to pay $400, 000 penalty daily to the contractors for delays.
It would also ensure sufficient supply of gas from the Cape Three Points Oilfields for power generation.

Consequently, Ghana would no longer suffer the intermittent supply of gas from Nigeria to power her power generators and, thus, subsequently reduce electricity tariffs in the near future.

Addressing a news conference in Accra on Monday, to update the public on the intermittent power outages, Dr Benjamin Asante, the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Gas, said on Saturday, March 30, Ghana Gas shutdown its system for effective inter-connection of its pipeline system with WAPCo for the next 10 to 12 days.

He explained that the pipelines of the two companies had to be shutdown and depressurized, to enable them to take out all the flammable gas from the system to facilitate the interconnection process.

Dr Asante added that other equipment and facilities such as the gas regulator, heaters, metering and piping devices were supposed to be modified in order to meet the intended purpose.