Ample measures have been put in place to ensure that the power crisis is permanently curtailed, outgoing Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has said.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Terkper said with the coming on board of the TEN oil field, some other gas generation projects will gradually wean the country off the West African Gas Pipeline.
President John Mahama spoke highly of Ghana’s prospects in his final State of the Nation address, as he said Ghana was closer to energy sufficiency following a tenure that was marred by the power crisis, popularly referred to as dumsor, which was brought on by a deficit in power generation.
Moving forward, Mr. Tekper said the country is going to “have TEN field gas starting this quarter” adding that “the nexus of gas supply is going to come from Sankofa which will put Ghana on the trajectory of about GHc 3 trillion worth of Gas, and this is the context in which we must look at the permanent solution.”
“We have secured the World Bank partial loan guarantee so the structure we have is that, Ghana will produce its own Gas,” the Finance Minister added.
The expansion of existing plants is also under consideration, to further consolidate the gains made towards energy self-sufficiency, Mr. Terkper said.
“The plants like Atuabo can be expanded. Independent power producers like Asogli has already expanded. We have three independent power production plants approved by parliament already, and all these are going to operate the Sankofa Gas which will be produced by GNPC.”
“GNPC will then sell this gas to either the VRA or independent power producers or others, and those plants will produce gas for Ghana. We are moving from depending almost exclusively on the West African Gas to using our own gas,” Mr. Terkper explained further.
He also noted that, the third FPSO earmarked for the offshore Cape Three Point Sankofa development is at least 80 percent complete.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
