My dum siesie voyage to Atuabo

Growing up in Tarkwa and Prestea in the Western Region, it was not very often that the opportunity presented itself to visit the regional capital, Takoradi.

Indeed, most of the time, leaving town meant a trip to Accra to visit my maternal grandmother of blessed memory. 

This then meant a mere drive through Taadi, as the regional capital is known by many local folks, with its unique variation of the Fante language and terminologies, my favourite being azaay. 

I have spent a few private weekends in the Oil City and I am always swayed by its many charms, from its sleepy harbour to its vibrant market circle. 

Trip to Atuabo

Last Thursday, I found myself on an early morning flight with two work colleagues from Accra en route to Takoradi, where we would meet a team of media personnel for a site visit to Ghana National Gas Company’s Gas Processing Plant (GPP) at Atuabo, almost two hours’ drive from Takoradi. 

It was a return trip with a rather busy schedule, which meant no opportunity to soak in the local ambience. If only the trip had taken place on Friday, I most certainly would have stayed behind for the weekend after work.

The previous day, the Ministry of Energy had issued a press release stating that the Ghana National Gas Company’s Gas Processing Plant at Atuabo in the Western Region was shutting down for 14 days for essential maintenance works. 

The release, which was subsequently followed by a joint press release by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) and Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), indicated an impact on power supply to consumers due to the shortfall in gas to the generators occasioning from the shutdown. 

The idea of the trip, at the instance of the Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, was to provide the public, through the television networks, with a visual insight into exactly what had occasioned the shutdown, as well as the scope of work being done, with a view to completing it by Friday, April 7, 2023, and with it, an end to the expected power interruption. 

Of course, with the horrors of ‘dumsor’ from yesteryear still fresh in many Ghanaian minds, it was important to get the messaging right and to provide the relevant information, as well as what people should expect, since a communication vacuum always gets filled up anyway and it becomes difficult to rein propaganda in once it develops wings of its own. 

Once the jitters hit, the fire fighting communication is likely to go awry. 

If people have clear, precise, reliable and authoritative information, it becomes easier for them to plan their lives, in this case around the power interruptions to be expected. After all, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. 

Rather than your classic ‘dumsor’, occasioned by insufficient power that then needed to be rationed, this was a clear case of ‘dum siesie’, an expression Dr Prempeh introduced to Ghanaians some time last year, which simply means shutting down for repairs or maintenance.

Tour of facility

One of the first things we noticed, beyond the sheer scale of the plant, is that the company takes health and safety particularly seriously, especially given the nature of the product they deal in. 

According to Robert Kofi Lartey, General Operations Manager of the company, who led the tour, the maintenance work was necessitated to curtail loss of containment due to corrosion to safe guard personnel and equipment safety for efficient and sustainable operations. 

The maintenance activities included the replacement of sections of pipelines, servicing of the Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI) unit, the Central Heating System, Low Temperature Separator, Overhead Product Cooler, as well as pressure safety valves on the LPG storage tanks as well as general corrosion control measures.

Mr Lartey explained that the pressure safety valve replacement work required purging of the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage tanks with nitrogen gas that was self-generated from two truck-mounted systems owned by GNGC from atmospheric air. 

The purged LPG is calibrated and flared under permit from the EPA. He further indicated that though the Atuabo plant was under total shutdown for maintenance works, other GNGC installations in areas such as Takoradi and Prestea were fully operational.

We saw workmen busily working to restore anti-corrosive paint, replacing rusty equipment occasioning from the salty air which could be hazardous to the operations of GNGC, and engaged in other activities towards the restoration of the plant. 

It was explained to us that to complete the works on schedule, trained casual staff had been engaged and that work is being done round the clock, with day and night shifts in the company’s determination to conclude the essential works by Friday, April 7, 2023 as announced. 

Professionalism and utter focus seemed to ooze from everyone working on the site, fully aware of their roles in meeting the completion date. 

Impressions

After the tour, we made our way to the nearby Maha Beach Resort for lunch before dashing to Takoradi to catch the evening flight back to Accra and prepare for work the next day.  

As I sampled the beautiful surroundings of the resort, I made a mental note to myself to put this destination on my bucket list of places to visit in the country.

On the way back, as my mind kept harking back to the hardworking frontline workers at the Atuabo processing plant, I could not help but ponder over the sheer amount of work and complex decisions and actions that take place behind the scenes to bring power to our homes, offices and establishments with the mere flick of switch that we do not give much thought to. 

From those who generate the gas to those who process it, from those who work on power generation, transmission and distribution, those who handle the financial, political, logistical and other aspects – all working almost seamlessly and sometimes in challenging circumstances with a single aim, which is to make our lives just a little more comfortable for us through the magic of electricity.

So far, Ghanaians have shown remarkable forbearance with the current situation. From where I sit, one can only be truly grateful. May April 7, 2023 come soon, and with it, the end of the current limited power interruptions as ‘dum siesie’ manifests itself in a more robust gas processing infrastructure, and across the entire power value chain. 

For his remarkable action-oriented and results-driven leadership style so far, I have no doubt in my mind that Energy Minister ‘Napo’ deserves significant commendation.

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng

Head, Communications & Public Affairs Unit, Ministry of Energy, Accra.
E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com