The Ministry of Power has attributed the power outage experienced in parts of the country on Tuesday to the limited supply of lean gas from the Ghana National Gas Company.
According to the ministry, the situation which has lasted for about two days now, has also affected power production at the Aboadze Thermal plant in the Western region.
A statement released by the Ministry on Wednesday said,
“…The Thermal Plant at Aboadze power plant is receiving a limited supply of lean gas from the Ghana National Gas Company over the last two days. This it says is as a result of operational challenges at the Atuabo Gas Processing plant.”
But speaking to Citi Business News on the latest development, the Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor assured that efforts are being put in place to augment the supply of fuel to the power plants in the coming days.
“I have spoken to VRA and the other engineers and they are making frantic efforts to bring in some plants. For instance we intend running both units of KTPP on diesel but the objective is to try as much as possible to close the deficit as much as possible,” John Jinapor explained.
The statement further indicated that engineers may eventually switch fuel plants to crude oil,
“Engineers of the power ministry are keenly monitoring the situation and may eventually switch all dual fuel plants to light crude in the coming days should the situation persist,” the statement said.
In response however, John Jinapor noted that there will be the need to monitor the situation before any such decision is taken,
“Anytime there is a disruption it means that some of the plants will momentarily go down, but you will have to monitor because receiving limited gas doesn’t mean immediately switching the thermal plant from gas to light crude,” he observed.
Ghana Gas comment
Meanwhile the Communications Manager of the Ghana Gas Company, Alfred Ogbarmey has also confirmed the situation to Citi Business News.
He said Ghana Gas is currently receiving about 30 mmscf which is half of its normal 60 mmscf capacity. The gas company is however supplying the Aboadze Thermal plant with a daily amount of 24 mmscf of gas.
“As I speak to you we have for the past 48 hours had a challenge with a faulty knock centre, a key equipment that helps us to measure, determine and do a few other things with the kind of gas we receive and are able to pass on. The local contractor that is responsible for the supply of that part says they have run out of stock,” the Communications Manager indicated.
Mr. Ogbarmey however intimated that efforts are underway to rectify the situation by the weekend.
“Indeed we were willing to send somebody to Barcelona, Spain to bring the equipment down but fortunately it has been dispatched and it is scheduled to arrive into the country by Friday. So we expect that once it arrives on Friday- by the weekend, all things being equal, the challenges with our faulty knock centre would have been resolved,”
“As a result we will be able to take the present 60 million standard cubic feet of gas from the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah and pass it to VRA,”he observed.
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By: Norvan Acquah-Hayford/Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
