Thermal plants at Aboadze in the Western region will, from this weekend, resume intake of gas from the Ghana Gas Company Limited.

This follows assurance from the engineers working on connecting Ghana National Gas Company (GNCC) pipelines to the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCO) from Nigeria that, natural gas is expected to be pumped into the Aboadze station for commissioning purpose, between Friday, April 5 and Saturday, April 6.

“Once completed, gas can be exported to VRA at Aboadze on Sunday, 7th April 2019 ahead of target,” Head of Communications at Ghana National Gas Company, Ernest Owusu Bempah, shared an update on social media, Thursday.

The Plants for a couple of weeks now have been operating at below capacity partly due to the shutdown of pipelines that supply natural gas to power them to produce electricity for consumers. 

The other reason, according to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, is due to debt accumulation in the energy sector.

The team, he said, is working ahead of the 12-day timeline they set for themselves to complete the works following the shutdown of the pipelines.

Some 60 million standard cubic feet per day of gas is expected to be moved from the west to also power thermal plants in the east in Accra.

The successful completion of engineering works on the pipelines, which is the inlet of the Takoradi Regulating and Metering Station at Aboadze, are expected to end the erratic power supply resulting from low power generation.

Read also: Ghana Gas sure of beating 12 days timeline to supply gas

Completed tasks

According to Mr. Owusu Bempah, the scheduled 12-day shutdown has seen significant progress over the few days.

He indicated that, so far, the team has successfully decommissioned the vent lines of the existing facilities and tied to the new vent lines with loop check of the ESDV23011 and ESDV23012 being completed.

Test to check Gross Leakage has also been successfully carried out and at the same time, inserting of the VRA 1.5Km pipeline is also ongoing.

The inlet tie-in works have been completed and the leakage test has also successfully been conducted while the Emergency Shutdown Valve (ESDV23011) termination works are ongoing.

Outstanding works

He said the inlet and outlet of the Bypass are both isolated and decommissioned pending the uninstallation of the pipelines.

Sandpapering of the new pipelines, cleaning and painting of the new pipelines are ongoing, and they are expected to be completed on Friday, April 5, Mr Owusu Bempah further stated.

Meanwhile, the team of engineers is working on levelling of the chippings under the main pipe rack. “Backfilling and repositioning of the valve supports for the inlet valves to the Separators are ongoing, and they are expected to be completed tomorrow (Friday, 5th April 2019),” he added.