Government's hope of having the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant in the Western region supply its first gas by middle of this year, has been hit by a further delay.

The plant, according to the Energy and Petroleum Minister, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, would now be ready for commercial production by the last quarter of this year.

Mr. Armarh-Kofi Buah disclosed this on Friday, when he inaugurated a seven-member board of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo).

He said the April deadline cannot be met as announced earlier due to some technical risks that needed to be averted .

“From what I know, there are a lot of risks in there and so I do not believe anybody can come out and tell you that gas will flow in April”, he said.

He maintained that there are several processes  that the plant has to go through before it is ready for final production.

The gas is meant to feed the Aboadze thermal plant to supplant the use of crude oil in power production.