Ghana Gas Company Limited is to shut down the Atuabo gas processing plant for 10 days. The shut down to start from Wednesday, August 31 to help carry out some routine maintenance works on the facility in the Western Region.

Communications Director of Company, Alfred Ogbamey tells JOYBUSINESS  the shutdown is also part of an insurance requirement for the plant.

It is however not clear for now, how this shutdown could affect power supply in the country as the Volta River Authority (VRA), recently imported significant volumes of crude to deal with any shortfall in gas supplies for power generation in the country.

In a related development, some of the workers that demonstrated last week Friday have been prevented from working at the plant by some military personnel.  

But sources close to the management of Ghana Gas say they were forced to take the action for security reasons.

Men of the Ghana Armed Forces last Friday stopped a demonstration by over 100 Ghanaian workers of the Company in Western Region.

Joy News' Kwaku Owusu Peprah reported that the workers were staging a demonstration Friday morning to register their anger and force the management of Ghana Gas to fix the fire safety issues at the plant were forced to abandon their demonstration.

According to the workers, the least spark of fire at the processing plant could spell disaster for Ghana as the fire safety system at the strategic installation have been seriously compromised.

PRO of Ghana Gas, Alfred Ogbame, has however dismissed the concerns of the workers.

He discounted reports that the demonstration was stopped by the military, insisting that the demonstrators failed to get the required turnout for their demonstration.

Local Union Chairman of Ghana Gas, Sumaila Mahama who spoke to JOYBUSINESS confirmed that all members of the workers Union who reported to work today were prevented from entering the premises. 

"They were prevented by a heavy security build up at the various sites of the facility,"

Mr Mahama said they have therefore communicated to the director of operations who sent an email about the development but he told them his email was for them to wait and resume after the August 29.

He said they are waiting to see what would happen when they resume tomorrow as the communication has directed. 

Click here to read the press release