Ghana is working on commissioning a subsurface to facility study of the entire natural gas demand and supply chain; to fully evaluate the country’s gas reserves, get a hang of the pricing template and the processes required to optimally deliver gas to power plants and other domestic users. The project is being promoted by the Volta River Authority, the main generator and supplier of electricity in Ghana.
The country has always said it will not export a molecule of its gas. But the gas projects it is currently carrying out are ad-hoc, not based on a whole sale national study of needs, supply and availability.
Currently a gas processing plant with capacity for one hundred and fifty million standard cubic feet per day (150MMscf/d) is under construction, as is a 120km pipeline, to utilize the gas from the deepwater Jubilee field, to feed a 132MW Thermal Plant. There is an added on LPG plant, also in the pipeline. This project itself has suffered significant delays, in part because of funding and in part because of inadequate front end engineering. Even so, the country’s energy officials believe that the economy can soak up far more natural gas resources than this single project promises, if systematically planned. Ghana has been frustrated by the epileptic delivery of gas from Nigeria, which is coming from the West Africa Gas Pipeline.
