Power Crisis To Extend Into 2015

Ghana’s power crisis, which is collapsing businesses and rendering workers redundant in the country, is expected to continue until May 2015.

John Jinapor, Deputy Energy Minister, who briefed Parliament yesterday, said the power crisis was likely to end in May 2015.

According to him, government was on course to eliminate the deficit in the power sector, stating that government was expecting 110 megawatts of power by the end of the year following the completion of the TICO expansion project.

He added that the Kpong Thermal Power Project, which has the capacity to produce 220 megawatts of power, would be available in the first quarter of 2015.

Mr Jinapor said a power ship with the capacity to produce 450 megawatts has been engaged by government, explaining that the company would be responsible for the importation of its crude oil to power the thermal plants in the second quarter of 2015.

He said government was also in talks with independent power producers to construct more plants, adding that with the coming on stream of the Atuabo Gas Project and the West African Gas Pipeline, government was confident that the deficit would be reduced to the minimum, if not eliminated.

Meanwhile, the Group Executive Director (Gas &Power) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. David Ige, has promised that Nigeria would in the next few weeks increase the volume of gas supplied to Ghana under the West African Gas Pipeline project.

Dr. Ige made this known during a West African Energy Ministers meeting in Accra to discuss issues pertaining to the West African Gas Pipeline project.

“As we approach the end of this year, we expect that close to 200 million cubic feet of gas will be added to the national grid. Every addition of gas into the network goes a long way to stabilize and ensure the reliability of supply to the sub-region.”

Source: Cephas Larbi [email protected]