Ghanaian President Discusses Poor Gas Supply With Jonathan

As load shedding persists in Ghana following the inability of Nigeria to meet its gas supply contract to that country, its president, John Dramani Mahama, last weekend, held talks with President Goodluck Jonathan.
President Mahama, according to report by Ghanaweb, is not satisfied over the recent irregular supply of gas to Ghana, through the West African Gas Pipeline (WAPCo), from Nigeria which has taken a toll on Ghana’s energy crisis with the country’s load shedding programme becoming intensified. Though the report did not indicate the outcome of the meeting, recent comments by officials in Ghana shows the country is looking elsewhere to source gas to be able to fire its thermal power stations and meet domestic electricity demand.
However, on its part the WAPCo, operator of the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP), has highlighted pipeline safety and improvement in pipeline utilisation as two priority areas it is focusing on. The general manager, Corporate Affairs, WAGP, Mrs Harriet Wereko-Brobby, said the declaration of “open access” for the pipeline in July 2012, has paved the way for the company to be available to other shippers, aside the NGAS, to improve on supply arrangement. The WAPCo transports gas based on agreements between a shipper, the NGAS and its customers, the CEB in Togo and Benin and the Volta River Authority, Ghana.
The pipeline can currently carry an initial volume of 170MMscfd and has potential to carry additional volumes of up to 474 MMscfd. WAGP’s present contractual volume is 132MMscfd and WAPCo is positioning itself to make available its sub regional infrastructure to transport more gas.
To this end, WAPCo has held a number of fora that brought together gas producers, transporters, marketers, regulators and power generation companies.