The date for resumption of gas supply from the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah has been postponed due to damage of the turret bearing on the floating production storage and offloading vessel.
Tullow estimates that production from the FPSO will re-start in two weeks.
Gas production was expected to begin this weekend after a two-week shutdown for routine maintenance works, but lead partners of the Jubilee Fields, Tullow, says the turret bearing on the vessel is damaged “and is no longer able to rotate as originally designed.”
“The FPSO Kwame Nkrumah has now been placed on ‘heading control’ through the use of tugs which minimise vessel movement around the bearing.
“New operating procedures, including the use of a dynamically-positioned shuttle tanker (capacity of 250,000 barrels of oil) and a storage tanker (capacity of 1 million barrels of oil), are being implemented to assure safe production and off-take operations,” said a statement by Tullow.
The first two-week shutdown resulted in shortage of gas supply from the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company to power producer, Volta River Authority (VRA) — causing intermittent power cuts in some parts of the country.
The latest update on the FPSO could worsen the power situation.
The country is just recovering from a debilitating power challenge that spanned about two years.
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Myjoyonline
