Strengthening investment in gas processing capabilities, a viable option for West Africa

A cross the West Africa Region, there are encouraging signs that the prospect of gas has a flourishing future. From Côte d’Ivoire to Ghana, down to Nigeria there are huge gas finds which when developed, put the region in good stead.

Statistics indicate that Nigeria remains very strong in terms of gas production as production has not drop by any significant margin.

Ghana for example has experienced rapid natural gas production increase to 46.9trn scf in 2015. Most of Ghana’s gas discoveries have been made in the Western Basin. According to a report by Oxford Business group, large commercial reserves were discovered in Sankofa, a deepwater non-associated gas reservoir located 60 km offshore in the Cape Three Points area.

The report indicated that the Sankofa-GyeNyame field, found by Italy’s Eni in 2009, has expected reserves of 1.07trn scf of non-associated gas and the field is expected to produce first gas in 2018.

As soul lifting as this gas discoveries are, industry close watchers opine that for Ghana in particular and West Africa in general to achieve the ambition of having a sustainable gas production value chain, the issue around adequate gas processing capabilities has to be addressed.

Analysts observe that across the region, despite improvements in projects, technical issues in some of the gas plants meant that gas flaring will remain a big challenge to the countries in West Africa.

Bolaji Osunsanya, a gas expert was quoted to have said that the challenge in Nigeria achieving her 2018 targets for gas production would be infrastructure, because unfortunately Nigeria is not well connected or well supplied infrastructure-wise.

The projection according to the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan suggests that Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa by GDP is expected to increase gas production from an estimated current levels of 8,000 million cubic feet per day (mcfpd) to 11,000 mcfpd by 2018.

According to a report by the United States Energy Information Administration analysis report, a significant amount of Nigeria’s gross natural gas production is flared because some of Nigeria’s oil fields lack the infrastructure needed to capture the natural gas produced with oil, known as associated gas.

Analysts urge government to deepen market penetration and sustain demand growth and also vigorously pursue the completion of gas gathering and utilisation projects.

To address this, the government of Ghana is developing the Western Corridor Gas Infrastructure Development Project, which is being designed to transfer and process gas from Jubilee and other offshore projects without the need for flaring or re-injection.

With two new fields scheduled to come on-line in the next two years and improved regulation through updated E&P laws making interactions more transparent for investors, prospect for gas are trending positively.

Close industry watchers are of the opinion that in order for Ghana and indeed her other West African neighbours to reap maximum benefit from its gas reserves, all of its infrastructure will need to be operating at full capacity as new fields come on-line.

KELECHI EWUZIE