Accompanying gas from the crude oil being drilled from the Jubilee Field will for now have to be flared into the atmosphere. This goes against a pledge by government that there would be absolutely no flaring, a practice described as harmful to the environment. In pursuance of that policy, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has been frantically working towards installing infrastructure that would evacuate the gas to shore. Again, despite assurances from the GNPC that the gas will be available for electricity generation when production of crude begins, this has not happened. Chairman of the National Task Force on Gas Development, Dr. Kwesi Botchway explained the gas will for now be flared until the infrastructure is in place. “Come two weeks from now, when we do the inauguration, you will see gas being flared…but we don’t want the gas to be flared for unduly longtime because it is waste and we don’t want to re-inject it back into the oil wells for too long because it can damage the wells,” he said. He however maintained government is still working seriously on making the gas processing plant operational in about 18 months. Source: Joy Business/Ghana