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[ 2014-10-21 ] 
Ghana gas to flow next week
Barring any last-minute hitch, the Atuabo Gas
Processing Plant will receive its first natural
gas next week to carry out its final testing and
pave way for commercial production.
This is because the final process of Tie-in of the
Ghana National Gas Company’s (Ghana Gas)
58-kilometre Offshore Pipeline to that of the
2-kilometre flexible riser of the Jubilee
partners, led by Tullow, began yesterday and is
expected to take between five and seven days to
complete.
The Tie-in process began sometime last week and
several activities, including flushing water out
of the pipelines, known as dewatering, have been
completed successfully.
The Finder understands that all testing have been
completed, except the part of the gas processing
plant that handles the processing of natural gas
into various gas products.
Once the Tie-in is completed and Tullow and
partners open the valves of the wellheads, natural
gas will flow to the processing plant to carry out
the last testing to ensure that the plant works
according to design, specification and
construction.
Communications Manager of Ghana Gas, Mr Alfred
Ogbamey explained that once the final testing
proves successful, commercial processing of
natural gas would kick- start.
He was hopeful that, all things being equal, gas
processing would commence by the end of November
to end the limited flaring being carried out by
the Jubilee partners.
According to him, the 12-inch 58- kilometre
Offshore Pipeline from the gas processing plant,
as well as the 111-kilometre Onshore Pipeline have
both been tested successfully.
He explained that it could take four months for
the plant to operate at full capacity to process
above 120 million standard cubic feet of gas per
day.
This is because intake of raw gas from Jubilee
field would be done in a gradual process, starting
from 30 million standard cubic feet of gas per
day for the first month, 60 million standard cubic
feet of gas per day for the second month, 90
million standard cubic feet of gas per day for the
third month, and finally 120 million standard
cubic feet of gas per day for the fourth month.
Mr Ogbamey explained that the processing plant can
process all the 150 million standard cubic feet of
gas per day capacity of the Jubilee field
partners.
Processing of the natural gas would lead to four
main gas products being churned out of the Atuabo
Gas Processing Plant; namely lean or dry gas,
which will be pumped directly to Volta River
Authority’s (VRA) Aboadze thermal plant for
power generation, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)
for domestic use, as well as condensates and
pentanes for the energy market.
In terms of energy to be produced, he said 30
million standard cubic feet of gas per day would
generate about 120 megawatts of power.
Consequently, 120 million standard cubic feet of
lean gas per day would generate 480 megawatts of
power a day.
Currently, VRA generates 75% of the power consumed
in the country and 56% of that generation comes
from non-hydro sources at a cost of $3 million a
day.
Ghana Gas is expected to save the nation over $500
million a year from importing light crude to power
thermal plants because gas costs barely half the
price of light crude oil.
Mr Ogbamey noted that Ghana Gas would also produce
180,000 tonnes of LPG a year, which represents 75%
of Ghana’s 240,000 tonnes of LPG consumed
annually.
“Besides the $500 million savings in cost of
generation to the VRA and the country, there is an
additional $500 million savings in forex that
would have otherwise gone out of the country for
the importation of the reduced light crude. That
money would be paid to a Ghanaian company,
retaining the amount in the economy, leading to a
billion-dollar savings for Ghana on lean gas
alone,” Mr Ogbamey noted.
Further savings would be made by Ghana as well on
the millions of dollars spent on the importation
of LPG into the country annually, he noted. Source - The Finder
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