The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) is urging the Ghana National Gas Company Limited and the government to fast track the expansion of the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant, to bring an end to the millions of gas being flared annually, as the gas flared could reduce electricity tarrifs paid by consumers in Ghana.
In 2023, out of the 254,167.70 mmscf of gas produced from Ghana’s three gas producing fields, a total of 28,446.09 mmscf were simply burt away (flared), due to a lack of receiving capacity of the Atuabo gas plant, whilst Ghana still import and depends on gas from the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) at higher prices. This higher price equally has implications on how much consumers pay for electricity powered by gas from the WAGP.
At an information and training session by PIAC on its 2023 Annual report, the Technical Manager of PIAC Mr. Mark Agyemang wants Ghana Gas and the government to speed up works on the expansion of the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant to bring an end to the gas flaring regime, which has environmental consequences, gas shortages for power as was recently announced by the VRA, and help reduce electricity tarrifs for Ghanaians.
According to him “gas flaring didn’t start today. Ghana started producing oil in December 2010, and the first gas processing plant became operational in the middle of 2014. Meaning that, lot of gas was flared between 2010 and 2014. This meant that lots of money went down the drain within that period.
Mr Agyemang stated that, the best was to have a processing plant with a bigger capacity than what we have today when we were building the Atuabo gas processing plant, knowing very well that our oil production was going to increase some years to come”.
But he attributed this to lack of funds.
He said if the new processing plant is completed on time, the country would have enough gas to supply to industries, that we would not have to depend on Nigeria for gas to power our thermal plants and other industries.
Source:myinfotoday.com
