Gas supply from Nigeria to Ghana resumes this week as repair of WAGP is completed

After almost a year of non-supply of gas from the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) which was shut down August last year following a loss of pressure around the Lome segment of the pipeline, gas is expected to flow from Nigeria through the transnational pipeline this week.

The West African Gas Pipeline Company, operator of WAGP system, had in February declared April 30, 2013 as a tentative date for resuming its supply of gas from the pipeline, but it was not to be.

According to a report on GhanaWeb, repair works on the pipeline and a test run have been completed.

With the completion of the repairs, the Sunon Asogli Plant in Ghana, which has been lying idle since the destruction of the pipeline in August 2012, will receive 50 to 60 million cubic metres of gas to run its operations, said Kweku Awotwi, chief executive officer, Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana, at the meet-the-press series in Accra last Thursday.

Awortwi explained that with the completion of repair works, engineers had started opening the valves to increase the pressure to facilitate uninterrupted flow of gas.

Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, Ghana’s minister of energy and petroleum, had said once the Sunon Asogli Plant started running, 250 megawatts of power would be brought on stream to boost the power supply situation in the country.

“Since last August, we have all had to endure a very excruciating load-shedding exercise as a result of the damage caused to the West African Gas Pipeline. I am happy to report that the repair works and testing on the pipeline have been completed and we expect the operators to resume the supply of gas in the coming days,” he was quoted as saying.

From the later part of 2012, the country has been confronted with energy supply challenges, partly due to increasing demand and a shortfall in supply.

As part of efforts to manage the energy crisis, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has had to resort to load-shedding exercises which have affected industries, production and services.

Ghana’s energy supply is basically from hydro and thermal sources.

The $1 billion transnational gas pipeline, the first sub-regional natural gas project in sub-Saharan Africa, was initiated by the governments of Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Togo to supply gas from the Escravos region of the Niger-Delta to feed the gas-fired generating plants of the three participating countries.

Shareholders in the project are Chevron (36.9 percent), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (24.9 percent), Shell (17.9 percent), VRA (16.3 percent), Bengaz (two percent) and Sotogaz (two percent).