Nigeria commits to increase gas supply to Ghana
The Nigerian government has expressed its commitment towards the continuous supply of gas to Ghana to operate its thermal power plants.
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The Nigerian government officials and other stakeholders involved in the supply of gas to Ghana made the commitment at a meeting they held with Ghana’s Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, last Tuesday March 18, 2014.
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Energy in Accra yesterday the Ghana delegation to Nigeria was assured of a constant supply of 50MMBtu/d, up from the 30MMBtu/d or less being supplied in recent days.
It said the committed 50MMBtu/d fell far short of the contractual volumes of 123MMBtu/d but could immediately at least keep the Sunon Asogli Plant running,
After intense negotiations with the Minister of Petroleum of the Republic of Nigeria, officials of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Shell and Chevron who together form N-Gas and who are the suppliers of the natural gas to Ghana, the statement indicated that the Ghanaian team was briefed about the causes of the low levels of gas supply.
It said the reasons given for the low volumes were due to the continuous breach of the pipelines and competition for the product on the Nigeria market.
The statement said the Ghanaian delegation also consulted with officials of the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company and the West Africa Gas Pipeline Authority and explored other potential private gas suppliers.
The Energy Minister, accompanied by the Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority, Mr Kirk Koffie, on Monday went to Nigeria on the instructions of President John Dramani Mahama for discussions with suppliers in a bid to boost gas supply to enhance power generation.
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Ghana has been experiencing load-shedding for sometime now and according to managers of the energy sector, the crisis was partly due to the erratic and very low levels of gas supply from Nigeria.