Gas supply from WAGP drops to 30m cubic feet |
IN a paradoxical turn of events, Ghana may soon become a net importer of electricity to Nigeria, going by its current plan to raise its generating capacity.
Indeed, the Ghanaian government has unveiled plans to increase electricity generation from the current 2,500MW to about 7,000MW by 2016, which it intends to export to other countries, including Nigeria.
Besides, the country has lamented Nigeria’s inability to keep to the contractual agreement to supply 130 million cubic feet of gas through the West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP).
The Chief Director, Ghana Ministry of Energy, Thomas Akabzaa, while speaking at the West Africa Power Industry Convention (WAPIC) in Lagos, said that the country has started making serious arrangements to develop its gas resource to reduce its dependence on gas from Nigeria.
The $1billion WAGP initiated as a project in 1982 and completed in 2007 was meant to encourage Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron to tap into a vast resource that since the onset of oil production in the 1960s has been wasted in the associated gas burning-off process known as flaring.
It was to provide a cheap source of energy in a region starved of electricity, by connecting Nigeria’s western oil and gas fields to neighbouring Benin, Togo and Ghana.
But Nigeria has not been able to meet its gas obligation to the neigbouring countries due to pipeline vandalism and low investment in the sector, which operators said is as a result of the delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill.
Akabzaa said that Nigeria was supposed to send 130 million cubic feet per day of gas to Ghana, but has not been able to supply 30 million cubic feet to the country.
He said that the Ghanaian government had made huge investments in power generation that would enable the country export excess electricity to Nigeria and other neigbouring countries.
“We have given priority to electricity generation in our country. We have prioritised energy in such a way that we want to become the hub for power production in West Africa. We want to generate electricity to the point that excess power can be exported to Nigeria, Ivory Coast and other countries that have power deficit”.
“We are looking at a situation that we will be able to export our excess electricity to Nigeria as it still trying to fix the power sector. As electricity supply in Nigeria improves, there may be need for the two countries to engage in exchange of energy. This means that Nigeria will be able to supply energy to Ghana when there is drop in generation and Ghana will also be able to supply electricity to Nigeria whenever there is drop in generation.”
To achieve this dream, he disclosed that the country has secured export-import financing from China as well as special funds from Abu Dhabi to commence series of power generation projects, adding that a third hydropower dam project was already at an advanced stage.
Akabzaa stated: “One of the challenges facing the Ghana electricity sector remained the inadequate supply of gas from Nigeria through WAGP. The West Africa Pipeline is unfortunately not supply enough gas to power our electricity plants. We are expected to get 130 million cubic feet of gas from Nigeria, but it has been difficult getting 30 million cubic feet per day. We have put in place a number of study and we want to ensure that by 2016, we are able to supply electricity to 90 per cent of Ghanaian homes.
“The government is also strengthening the transmission network to reduce system loses. We have also put in place energy conservation arrangement and renewable energy act. We expect about $120 million of gas investment from the private sector”.
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