After negotiations with the Nigerian Petroleum Minister, officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Shell and Chevron who together form N-Gas; suppliers of natural gas, have assured Ghana of an increase in gas supply to power its thermal plants.
The Nigerian government raised the constant supply of gas from 30MMBtu/d or less being supplied in recent days to 50MMBtu/d after a meeting with Ghana’s Energy and Petroleum Minister, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah and other delegates last Tuesday, a statement from the Energy Ministry disclosed.
It said the committed 50MMBtu/d fell far short of the contractual volumes of 123MMBtu/d but could at least keep the Sunon Asogli Plant running.
The statement said the Ghanaian team were briefed about the causes of the low supply of gas which was the continuous breach of the pipelines and competition for the product on the Nigeria market.
It also 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.
Power supply in Ghana has been erratic and according to the managers of the energy sector, this was partly due to low levels of gas supply from Nigeria.