Ghana’s quest for energy security will receive a further shot in the arm this month when gas production from the ENI-Sankofa field Off Cape Three Points (OCTP) comes on stream, Ben Asante, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ghana National Gas Company Limited (GNGCL) stated here on Wednesday.
In an interview during the ongoing three-day Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhipCon) he said with the new Sankfa gas the country will further reduce its importation of light crude oil for energy generation.
“I am very happy that come June 26 gas production from the ENI field will come on stream It is exciting because, ENI is firm supply and it guarantees some minimum supply of flows that will be coming to the market. Currently the Daily Contract Quantity (DCQ) should be about 171 million Standard Cubic Feet (SCF’s), of gas per day,” Asante disclosed.
Ghana signed the agreement with ENI of Italy and Vitol of America in January 2015 for the development of the mostly natural gas Sankofa field at a cost of 7.0 billion U.S. dollars.
The country expects to receive a minimum supply of 154 Mln (SCF’s) of gas per day and the maximum they can go is 180 (Mln SCFS) from the field in addition to the 120 (Mln SCF’s) from the Jubilee and Tweneboa-Enyinra-Ntomme (TEN) fields.
“By the end of next year I expect more than 300 million SCF’s gas per day from all the sources added together it will be between 300 million and 350 million SCF’s per day,” an excited Asante added.
Going forward the multiplier effect of natural gas production on Ghana’s economy is expected to be enormous as it looks beyond just the generation of power and preparing to use gas at heat to ignite an industrial revolution , in terms of the fertilizer production; using it for heat in the mining areas and to bring up some of the Bauxite.
Asante projected that gas will become the fuel of choice because of its low atmospheric emission, compared to the others and certainly create lot more jobs.
The country’s maiden and only gas infrastructure so far was built by SINOPEC Petroleum of China and financed by the China Development Bank.
Already economic activity in the western region has increased both offshore and onshore with oil and gas production since 2011 and the expectation of all the secondary uses of gas increasing with more gas coming onshore.
The West African gold, cocoa and oil producer uses about 95 percent of its gas for power generation with just five percent going into ceramics production in the Takoradi are, 218 km west of the capital.
The three-day conference aims to offer a platform for government and industry players to discuss ways of making Ghana the Petroleum Hub of West Africa , explained Senyo Hosi, CEO of Chamber of Bulk Petroleum Distributors, organizers of the conference.
“Most of our downstream petroleum products that come to Ghana are redistributed form the sea-line of Togo. Can we rather have that trade move to Ghana? We have a lot of depots in Tema and the utilization is extremely low,” Hosi observed.
He stressed the need for Ghana to convert those facilities into a redistributive hub to generate a lot of employment in the country, while improving economic activity and assert utilization with all those investments in Tema.
Source: Xinhuanet.com
